No. 17 Iowa State pounds Auburn 99-70
AMES, Iowa — Dustin Hogue set career highs with 22 points and 16 rebounds, and 17th-ranked Iowa State pounded Auburn 99-70 on Monday night for its sixth straight win.
Melvin Ejim added 14 points and 10 rebounds for the Cyclones (6-0), who are the Big 12’s last unbeaten team.
Iowa State used a 27-5 run midway through the first half to build a 15-point lead. It jumped ahead by as much as 60-33 early in the second half in cruising to its fourth win by at least 29 points.
Chris Denson had 27 points for Auburn (4-2), which shot 35.5 percent and got beat on the boards 47-36.
Hogue, a 6-foot-6 junior from Yonkers, N.Y., averaged 12.9 points and 5.4 rebounds last season at junior college power Indian Hills Community College in Iowa. He was averaging 10 points and a team-high 8.6 boards for the Cyclones, but he quickly moved past those numbers against the Tigers.
Hogue had 11 points and 10 rebounds in the first 11½ minutes, keying that huge Cyclones run that put them ahead 32-17 with 5:57 left in the first half.
Hogue hit 6 of 7 shots in the first 20 minutes in leading Iowa State to a 47-28 lead.
Auburn had won four of its first five games, a stretch that included a 19-point loss to Northwestern State.
But this was the first time the Tigers played a high-major opponent — and they soon realized they were taking on a different level.
Iowa State, which entered play averaging a shade over 10 3-pointers a game, missed their first eight as Auburn took an early seven-point lead. But once freshman Matt Thomas got the Cyclones going with a 3, they rolled right past the Tigers as if Auburn was a low-major program in town for a payday.
Monte Morris banked in a 3 to make it 30-17, and Auburn put up little resistance from there.
Thomas finished with 14 points and Morris had 12 points and nine assists.
It doesn’t get any easier for the Tigers, who had just seven assists on 22 field goals. They face Illinois, Clemson and Boston College before Christmas.
The Cyclones next get Northern Iowa on a neutral floor in nearby Des Moines on Saturday. They then host No. 23 Iowa on Dec. 13 in what’ll surely be the most hyped game between the instate rivals in recent memory.