The Iowa State basketball team got a huge win in Las Vegas Monday, over St. John's. The Cyclones were able to make key plays late to hold on to a 83-82 victory. It wasn't all peaches and cream for Iowa State though, as key scorer Tamin Lipsey went down with an injury.
“We're still evaluating,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said after the game, per ESPN. “The training staff, medical staff, just told us it's going to be a day-to-day, lower-body extremity, so I don't have great detail on it. We haven't had time to really, truly evaluate him over time. So we'll get back to the hotel, check him out and see what that means.”
Lipsey is one of the best defensive players in the Big 12 conference. He is a two-time Big 12 All-Defensive Team pick.
“That's our guy. He runs the team. It's obviously disappointing to see him go down. But we have a next-player-step-up mentality. We knew we needed to win that game,” Cyclones junior forward Milan Momcilovic said. “But obviously it's tough to see our leader go down like that.”
Iowa State next plays Creighton on Tuesday, in the Players Era Festival basketball tournament in Las Vegas.
Iowa State got a big win over St. John's on Monday
The Cyclones had to play without Lipsey in the final minutes of the game against St. John's. It ultimately didn't matter, as the Big 12 power was able to lock down defensively and hang on.
“With the game on the line, we just didn't come up with the rebounds necessary to put the other team away,” St. John's coach Rick Pitino said. “But that's a credit to their incredible crashing of the offensive glass. We take the loss because we couldn't come up with the rebounds. It's unfortunate we lost another good game.”
Iowa State basketball hopes that Lipsey can play at some point again on its Las Vegas trip. The Cyclones are getting a lot of chances to pick up power 5 non conference victories.
Iowa State and Creighton play on Tuesday at 2:00 ET.
