I suppose this one was fairly easy to predict.
Yes, the 9th-ranked Kansas Jayhawks have been red hot. And, yeah, they did just beat the No. 1 team in the country in Arizona on Monday night, with an absolutely monster effort at Allen Fieldhouse.
But wasn't a letdown of some kind inevitable? Especially on the road. Especially against a Top 5 team. And especially when you consider the fact that Kansas had won 8 straight entering Saturday, with one of those being a 20-point beatdown of the team they were playing?
Add all of that up and, just about every time, you'll get something that looks like what we saw on Saturday in Ames.
Iowa State 74, Kansas 56. A far cry from what we saw Monday night, both in terms of production and the outcome.
The Jayhawks led early and played from in front for nearly half of the first half. But they never could gain complete control of a muddy game — the game was tied at 6 apiece with just 12 minutes to go in the first half — that was physical early and often with few whistles either way.
Iowa State did a much better job of handling that than the visiting Jayhawks and that set the tone for much of the day.
Next up, KU (19-6 overall, 9-3 Big 12) will head to Stillwater, Oklahoma next Wednesday to take on Oklahoma State at 8 p.m. on Peacock.
Here's a look back at some of the action from KU's latest trip to Ames.
LIKES
• They always fight - The game certainly looked to be over when Iowa State got up 20 early in the 2nd half and eventually led by 22 points midway through the period. But this group of Jayhawks never quits. They might not always play well. They might not always look pretty. But they do always battle. And on Saturday, that battling cut the Iowa State lead from 22 to 12 with 4:30 to play. In fact, KU had a shot from 3 that would've cut it to 9 with 4 minutes to play, but the shot missed. They didn't play well and they really weren't in it for nearly all of the second half. But they battled at times. There's a lotta heart on this team.
• DP plays - It was expected by most throughout the latter part of the week, but you still can't fully exhale about the prospects of Darryn Peterson playing until you actually see him out there. He was in this one, starting both halves and playing 24 minutes, and it's undeniable that that was a good thing for the Jayhawks, more so for the long-term and in the big picture than for how he performed on Saturday. After missing Monday night's win over No. 1 Arizona, Peterson finished this Top-10 battle with 10 points on 3-of-10 shooting with 3 turnovers.
• Streak had to end sometime - KU's run of 8 straight Big 12 wins after starting league play at 1-2, which was the longest by any conference team since 2019-20, undoubtedly was going to end at some point. There are just too many good teams, too many tough games and too much time still to go for anyone to think KU's run would continue for much longer. So, if it had to end, you might as well see it end with a loss on the road to the No. 5-ranked team in the country, which you already beat at home earlier this season. It's a bit of a reach to call this a like, but if you watched the game, you probably understand why it is.
• Rosario's minutes - By the time the freshman wing entered the game, the outcome had pretty much been decided. But there was a glimmer of a silver lining from the minutes he did play. And, no, it wasn't because he finally got a 3-point shot to fall. In fact, he didn't even attempt one. Instead of firing away from deep, Rosario drove to the rim hard, perhaps looking to get something to go close to shake him out of his season-long shooting slump. He still finished 0-for-2 from the floor, but he did get to the FT line once for a pair of free throws. He played 10 minutes and might not see that kind of run very often the rest of the way. So, this is probably more or less irrelevant. But give the kid credit for trying something different in search of a way out of his offensive funk.
DISLIKES
• First-half collapse - It wasn't always pretty, but the Jayhawks were hanging in there. That is, until a 4-minute stretch late in the first half which featured a number of KU fumbles and mistakes and a 14-0 Iowa State run that turned a 23-22 ISU lead into a decisive double-digit advantage. That put the Jayhawks in a 10-point hole at halftime and was the equivalent of sharks smelling blood in the water. Iowa State kept harassing Kansas throughout the close of the first half and never let up.
• 3-point D eventually falters - After doing an admirable job of keeping the Cyclones' top 3-point shooters down throughout the first half (3-for-16), the Jayhawks let up ever so slightly to open the 2nd half and allowed ISU to connect on their first four 3-point tries in the final 20 minutes, which helped the home team run out to a 20-point lead, barely 3 minutes into the 2nd half, marking KU's biggest deficit of the year against any opponent. The Cyclones went on to make their first six 3-pointers of the 2nd half before their first miss.
• Woeful turnovers - The total number of Kansas turnovers against ISU wasn't atrocious (13), but so many of the actual turnovers themselves were. Careless passes, trouble being strong with the ball against Iowa State's intense defense and balls overthrown or dribbled out of bounds plagued the Jayhawks in the decisive moments of Saturday's loss.
WHAT THE?
• Zero fastbreak points - Most of the credit for this goes to Iowa State and their defensive intensity and suffocating style, which was, somehow, nowhere to be found when the Cyclones came to Lawrence. But it was there in a big way on Saturday in Ames, and it kept Kansas from getting out and running and finding those easy buckets in transition that had been a huge part of that 8-game winning streak, perhaps most notably in Monday's win over Arizona.
— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com
