Morris Wins It At The Buzzer!

Thursday, March 12

Kansas City, Mo.

6:00 PM

Iowa State

23-8, 12-6

Texas (Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship)

20-13, 8-10

Texas

Iowa State

03.12.2015 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: cyclones.com

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Monte' Morris buried a fadeaway 17-foot jumper at the buzzer to give No. 13 Iowa State (23-8 overall, 12-6 Big 12) a 69-67 come-from-behind victory over Texas (20-13 overall, 8-10 Big 12) Thursday night at the Big 12 Championship in Kansas City. Mo.

Down 67-57 with 3:48 left in the game, ISU scored the final 12 points, including seven from Morris, to win its fourth-straight Big 12 Championship game. ISU was behind by as many as 15 points after intermission, recording its second improbable second-half comeback in its last three games (ISU was down by 21 points vs. Oklahoma in the second half before rallying for the victory).

Morris' jumper was ISU's only lead of the game.

Morris finished with a career-high 24 points and Georges Niang added 22 points. Morris was 9-of-15 from the field and 4-of-5 from 3-point range. He is 9-of-10 from downtown in his last three games, which included a streak of eight consecutive makes.

How it happened…
Texas jumped out to an early lead behind its hot shooting. The Longhorns drilled 5-of-its-first-7 shots from downtown, including a 2-of-2 effort from Javon Felix, to go ahead 23-14 with 9:44 left in the first half. UT was shooting 56.3 percent to ISU's 31.6 percent in the first 10 minutes of the contest.

UT scored 14 points in a row until the Cyclones finally ended a 10-minute scoring drought with a spinning bucket by Niang. Niang's basket cut the UT lead to 29-16 with 3:04 left in the opening period.

ISU tried to make a dent at the beginning of the second half, making a pair of treys- one by Naz Long, the other by Niang – but Jonathon Holmes buried two corner 3-pointers to increase the UT lead to 46-31 with 17:51 remaining, its largest lead of the second period.

A 10-3 Cyclone run closed the gap to 49-41 with 12:58 remaining in the game. Morris had five points in the run, including a step-back 3-pointer to cap it off.

The Cyclones cut the lead to six points, but Isaiah Taylor made a pair of floaters to put UT back up 58-49 with 8:45 left.

As ISU slapped on a full-court press, the Cyclones rattled off 10-straight points in a span of 2:30 to tie the game at 67-67 with under a minute left. Dustin Hogue hit a trey and then Morris canned his fourth bomb of the game to knot the game.

UT had two chances to score in the final 0:30 seconds, but missed on both shots. Hogue corralled a Felix 3-point attempt with 0:05.8 seconds left and immediately called timeout, setting up Morris' heroics.

The #cyclONEgameball goes to…
Monte' Morris. Monte' Morris was spectacular tonight, scoring seven of ISU's final 12 points, including the game-winner at the buzzer. Morris tallied a career-high 24 points behind a 9-of-15 effort from the field and a 4-of-5 showing from downtown. Morris has made 9-of-10 shots from 3-point range in his last three games.

Game Notes
*Monte' Morris recorded ISU's first buzzer beater since DeAndre Kane's bucket to defeat North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament last year.
*ISU scored 44 points in the second half after scoring just 25 in the opening period. ISU is averaging 55.3 points in the second half in its last three games.
*ISU has won four-straight games over Texas for the first time in school history.
*ISU has won four-straight games in a conference postseason tournament for the first time since 1996-97.
*ISU's 23 wins this season ties for fifth-best in school history.
*ISU's 15-point second-half comeback win is the ninth-best come-from-behind victory in school history (since 1980).
*Seven times in the Fred Hoiberg era ISU has won a game after being down by 10+ points in the second half: Yale (11), Oklahoma (13), Kansas State (14), Texas (15), Oklahoma State (16), UNI (18), Oklahoma (21).
*Georges Niang scored 24 points, moving past Ron Harris to No. 16 on ISU's career scoring list with 1,467 points.
*Niang tallied his 20th 20+ point game of his career.
*Niang hit two 3-pointers to give him 130 in his career and move him to No. 8 on ISU's career 3-pointers made list.
*Monte' Morris handed out three assists to move him to No. 12 on ISU's career assist list with 298.
*Morris now has 164 dimes on the year, to tie for the 18th-best single-season total in school history.
*Morris tied a career high with four 3-pointers
*Morris made his first three trey attempts to mount a streak of eight-consective 3-pointers made in his last three games.
*Morris has made 9-of-10 from 3-point range in his last three games.
*Jameel McKay tallied one blocks. He now has 51 blocks on the year to move to No. 6 on ISU's single-season list.
*Niang has scored 17 or more points in his last five games vs. Texas.
*Niang has shot over 50 percent from the field, is a combined (34-61; 55.7%) from the floor and is averaging 19.2 points in his last five games vs. UT.
*It marks the first time ISU has defeated an opponent three times since 1996 (Nebraska, Missouri).
*ISU committed a season-low five turnovers.
.