Rob Gray, Jan 15 • 0 Comments

Jan 15, 2025; Ames, Iowa, USA; Iowa State Cyclones guard Curtis Jones (5) drives to the hoop past Kansas Jayhawks guard Zeke Mayo (5) in the first half at James H. Hilton Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Reese Strickland-Imagn Images

 AMES — Kansas head coach Bill Self features a two-time Wooden Award All-American in his starting lineup.

 That would be star forward Hunter Dickinson.

 But there was just one player in Wednesday’s hyped top-10 matchup between No. 2 Iowa State and his No. 9 Jayhawks Self described as delivering a “first-team All-American” type performance.

 That would be hot-shooting Cyclone guard Curtis Jones.

 “The aggressiveness and the freedom that he plays with offensively is high,” said Self, who watched Jones score 25 points in ISU’s dominant 74-57 win before a rambunctious sellout crowd of 14,267 at Hilton Coliseum. “He’s playing downhill to the point now where he’s got you retreating in many ways.”

 Jones — who replaced recently injured forward Milan Momcilovic in the starting lineup — scored 20 of his game-high points in the first half alone. He canned a pair of 3-pointers in the final 90 seconds to cap an 8-0 run that gave the Cyclones a 40-30 halftime lead, and Kansas trailed the rest of the way.

 “That’s really cool,” Jones said when told of Self’s high praise. “I don’t know what’s really going through my head. I just feel super-confident. If you look at the way I’m playing right now, I feel like I’ve got the right to be, kind of.”

 No qualifier’s required. Jones drilled 8 of his 11 field goal tries in the first half, including an array of difficult floaters and deep 3-point balls. He’s now scored 20-plus points in four of the past five games, and a minimum of 14 points in 14 of the past 15 games as ISU notched its nation-leading 12th consecutive victory.

 “You could just see he had it rolling,” said Cyclone head coach T.J. Otzelberger, whose team notched its third straight regular-season win over the Jayhawks — its longest streak in the series since winning five in a row from 1999 to 2001. “And there were many times in that first half where we weren’t as effective offensively and he carried us through some stretches. So certainly amazing. The confidence he plays with, the poise, and the 3s that he hits, my goodness. They’re nowhere near the 3-point line. It always feels like they’re contested or eight feet behind the line — it’s amazing. And then he hits the one late and you feel like the whole place erupted.”

 Momcilovic injured his non-shooting hand during a recent practice. He has been ISU’s most accurate 3-point shooter this season, knocking down long-range shots at a 44.3 percent clip. It’s unclear how long he’ll be out, but Otzelberger deftly revamped his rotation, inserting both Jones and big man Brandton Chatfield into the starting lineup, while adding Demarion Watson to his top eight. Watson, an athletic 6-7 junior, provided an emphatic blocked shot and two offensive rebounds after not playing for a month. Center Dishon Jackson — who’d started the previous 15 games — notched 12 points on 4-for-5 field goal shooting off the bench before the break. He finished with an ISU career-high-tying 17 points and four offensive rebounds. One of those boards came over Dickinson and led to one of Tamin Lipsey’s two 3-pointers that gave the Cyclones a 52-41 lead with 4:15 left.

 “That play was huge,” Jones said. “It made them call timeout. And instead of going into the (under-four minute) media timeout (up) six or below, we went in up nine.”

 The Jayhawks trailed by at least seven the rest of the game. Transfer guard Zeke Mayo led Kansas with 17 points. Dickinson scored just six on 3-for-10 shooting while battling foul trouble. 

 “It always starts with making them compete on the other end,” said ISU forward Joshua Jefferson, who notched his sixth double-double of the season with 10 points and 12 rebounds. “Just continuing to go at ‘em.”

 As for Momcilovic, Otzelberger said most consider his injury a four-to-six-week situation, so opportunities for others could come for an extended period of time.

 “We just want to make sure that we get it right,” Otzelberger said. “That it’s diagnosed exactly (and he knows) what he needs to do.”

 Jones certainly knows what he needs to do — and that’s score in bunches and shine on the defensive end at an All-American level.

 “(It’s) really surreal,” Jefferson said of Jones’ recent shooting performances. “Especially with the hype behind us. It really just heightens the ceiling for our team, so we love to see him compete and score at a high level.”