Depleted Iowa State beats Northern Illinois 72-63
AMES, Iowa — Diante Garrett scored 22 points and depleted Iowa State sneaked past Northern Illinois 72-63 on Monday night for its seventh straight win.
Jake Anderson added 16 for the Cyclones (13-2), who used just six players until the final 10 seconds with starting guard Scott Christopherson and reserve center Jordan Railey out of action.
Northern Illinois (4-8) got as close as 65-60 with 3:41 left. But Anderson, playing against the team he starred with for the past three seasons, drove for a tough bucket inside and Melvin Ejim followed with two free throws off an intentional foul.
Xavier Silas had 18 points for the Huskies, who lost for the fourth time in five games.
Christopherson sat out with a bruised elbow. Railey was suspended for a violation of team rules.
After pounding nearly every smaller school they had faced during a surprisingly strong start, the Cyclones found themselves in an unexpectedly close affair with the Huskies.
Iowa State led 29-25 at halftime despite shooting just 25 percent from the floor. Though the Cyclones seemed poised to pull away early in the second half, their poor shooting allowed Northern Illinois to pull even at 44-all on Michael Patton's banked 3 with 11:18 left.
Iowa State responded with a 9-0 run, capped by a pair of layups from Garrett, to move back ahead 53-44. Jamie Vanderbeken and Ejim added 3s to put the Cyclones up 63-51 with 6:11 left.
Ejim added 11 points and 11 rebounds for the Cyclones
Iowa State was out of sync early on, but so were the Huskies. The Cyclones missed 18 of their first 22 shots until Bubu Palo drilled a 3 and Calvin Godfrey's steal and dunk put them ahead 16-11.
Anderson scored 1,152 points for Northern Illinois from 2008-10, a total that ranks 18th in school history. Anderson graduated from Northern Illinois in the spring with a year of eligibility left, and the NCAA granted him a waiver to attend graduate school and play one final season for the Cyclones.
Anderson has been one of the biggest reasons for Iowa State's fast start. The 6-foot-2 shooting guard was averaging 11.1 points and 8.5 rebounds entering play.
Christopherson, who ranks second on the team with 15.1 points a game, bruised his right shooting elbow in a 60-47 win at Virginia on Dec. 30 and sat out with the Big 12 opener at Nebraska looming on Saturday.
Railey is averaging just 2.3 points a game, but his absence exacerbated Iowa State's lack of frontcourt depth, and backup guard DeMarcus Phillips recently announced he'll transfer as well.
In response to all that unexpected attrition, coach Fred Hoiberg added walk-ons Andrew Mitchell and Austin McBeth — both football players — to the team earlier Monday.
Mitchell, a redshirt senior, played three years for the Cyclones at tight end. McBeth is also a walk-on for Iowa State's football team as a quarterback.
Both got in, without any names on the back of their brand new jerseys, with 9.8 seconds left.