Tre Singleton Scores 28 as No. 18 Iowa State Pulls Away From Southern Miss 83-57

Four days after Memphis spoiled the opener in Sioux Falls, No. 18 Iowa State came home to Hilton Coliseum and did what a ranked team is supposed to do with a bad taste in its mouth. It went right at the rim, it never trailed, and it let Tre Singleton handle the rest. The forward scored 28 points on 10-of-17 shooting with nine rebounds and three blocks, and the Cyclones beat Southern Miss 83-57 on Friday night in front of 13,930.

Iowa State is 1-1. Southern Miss falls to 1-1 after opening its season with a win over Tougaloo. The final margin was 26, the Cyclones led by as many as 29, and according to ESPN's game data they held the lead for 99 percent of the night. The Golden Eagles never led at all.

Singleton Sets the Tone Early

The first two minutes told you most of what you needed to know. Singleton scored the game's first basket on a layup at 19:36, then blocked Max Blank at the rim on the other end. Tamin Lipsey finished a layup off a Ryan Prather Jr. feed, Dominykas Pleta hit two free throws, and Iowa State was up 6-0 before Southern Miss had found its legs.

Jalyke Gaines-Wyatt answered with a 26-foot 3 off a Blank assist to make it 6-3, and for a stretch the Golden Eagles hung around the way underdogs do in November, mostly from the perimeter. But every time they got a look from deep, Iowa State came back with something at the basket. Singleton was the engine, scoring over length and through contact and crashing the offensive glass for five of the forward's nine rebounds, which turned a handful of Cyclone misses into easy second chances.

By halftime it was 46-29. Iowa State had scored 46 points in 20 minutes while going almost nowhere from 3, which says plenty about where those points came from.

Winning Without the 3

Here is the part of this game that should interest Iowa State fans more than the final score. The Cyclones shot 4 of 12 from 3-point range, a week after going 4 of 20 from deep against Memphis. That is eight made 3s in two games. Southern Miss actually won the 3-point battle comfortably, hitting 8 of 20 for 40 percent and outscoring Iowa State 24-12 from beyond the arc.

It did not matter, because the game was played in the paint and at the free throw line. Iowa State outscored Southern Miss 42-20 in the paint. The Cyclones shot 27 of 51 from the floor, a tidy 53 percent, and got to the line 36 times, making 25. Southern Miss went 11 of 22 at the stripe and was whistled for 27 fouls, including a technical and a flagrant. When a team is fouling that often and missing half its free throws on the other end, a 17-point halftime cushion becomes a 26-point final without much drama.

There is a version of this approach that works all season. T.J. Otzelberger's best Iowa State teams have been built on physicality and defense rather than volume shooting. But the shooting numbers through two games are a real question, and better opponents than Southern Miss will pack the lane and make the Cyclones prove they can punish them from outside.

The Defense Showed Up

If the offense was about the paint, the defense was about hands and length. Iowa State forced 18 Southern Miss turnovers, collected 10 steals, blocked nine shots and turned those giveaways into 23 points. Southern Miss scored just 14 points off Iowa State's 15 turnovers, and the fast break gap was even more lopsided: eight points for the Cyclones, one for the Golden Eagles.

Jaquan Johnson was the most disruptive player on the floor in that department. Johnson came off the bench to score 10 points, grab four rebounds, hand out four assists and pile up four steals in 20 minutes. Prather added three steals to go with nine points, including two made 3s in four attempts. Taj Manning went to work at the rim, blocking four shots in 22 minutes, and Singleton chipped in three more.

The result was a Southern Miss offense that never found a rhythm inside the arc. The Golden Eagles shot 19 of 52 overall, 37 percent, and just 11 of 32 on 2-point attempts. Gaines-Wyatt, who opened the scoring for Southern Miss, finished 1 of 7 from the field and needed 5 of 6 free throws to get to eight points.

Singleton's Night, and the Supporting Cast

Singleton's line was efficient in every direction: 10 of 17 from the field, 1 of 1 from 3, 7 of 10 at the line, nine rebounds, three blocks and a steal in 30 minutes. Singleton was the one Cyclone who looked comfortable creating a shot all night, and that was enough to tilt the game early.

Behind Singleton, the scoring was spread out. Prather had nine, Pleta and Jamarion Batemon had eight apiece, and Lipsey added seven on 3-of-4 shooting with four rebounds. Batemon's eight came almost entirely at the line, a perfect 6 of 6, while Batemon made just 1 of 5 from the field and missed all three 3-point tries. Pleta was quietly solid with five rebounds and 3-of-5 shooting.

The bench gave Otzelberger 23 points. Johnson led that group, Manning and Leon Bond III scored four apiece, Blake Buchanan added three points, three rebounds and three assists, and Xzavion Mitchell went 1 of 1 from the field. The starters played heavy minutes for a game decided this early, with Singleton and Prather both logging 30, but the rotation went deep enough that 13 Cyclones saw the floor.

For Southern Miss, Anthony Igiede was the lone double-digit scorer with 13 points on 5-of-11 shooting, including 3 of 5 from deep. Brandon Weston had nine, Isaac Taveras scored five with four steals, Mike Montano had five points and three assists off the bench, and Blank chipped in four points with three blocks. The Golden Eagles moved the ball reasonably well, with 13 assists to Iowa State's 12, but 18 turnovers wiped out most of that work.

What It Means for Iowa State

Nobody in Ames is going to throw a parade over a 26-point win against a Sun Belt team in the first week of the season. But this was the response the Cyclones needed after the loss to Memphis, when they led for under five minutes of game time and watched Jayden Reid close the night out. Friday they led from the opening basket to the final horn.

The encouraging signs are obvious. Singleton looks like the kind of interior scorer who can carry an offense on nights the jumpers do not fall. The defense forced turnovers in bunches and protected the rim, which is the identity Otzelberger's program has traded on for years. The rebounding edge was real, 38 to 28 overall and 26 defensive boards to Southern Miss's 17.

The concern is just as obvious. Eight 3-pointers in two games will not hold up once the schedule turns. Later this month Iowa State's schedule brings San Diego State and then either Tennessee or Maryland, and the Cyclones will need more than Singleton and free throws to win those games. A couple of home games before then offer a chance to find a shooting rhythm.

Southern Miss, for its part, showed it can shoot it. Hitting 40 percent from 3 in a hostile building against a ranked opponent is not nothing. The Golden Eagles just could not keep Iowa State off the free throw line or out of the paint, and they could not take care of the ball long enough to make it a game.

Up Next

Iowa State stays home to face Southern on Tuesday, Nov. 10, then hosts Niagara on Nov. 15.

The full box score (opens in a new tab) has every number, and Iowa State's photo gallery from the game (opens in a new tab) has the best views of Singleton at work.

Sources: ESPN box score and team stats, Iowa State Athletics. More men's college basketball coverage on Undrafted.

On a night when the 3s still would not fall, Iowa State found another way, and that is not the worst lesson to learn in the first week of November. The real test is whether the Cyclones can keep winning this way once the other side of the floor gets bigger and stronger.

Photo: Luke Lu/Iowa State Athletics.