Iowa State coach Steve Prohm talks about the Cyclones' defensive struggles in Friday's loss to Kansas State. Dargan Southard / The Register
AMES, Ia. — Iowa State’s early-season turbulence certainly stung, punctuated by a grotesque 18-point home loss to underwhelming Milwaukee in game No. 2.
Steve Prohm felt this was worse.
The Cyclones coach tagged Friday’s 91-75 conference-opening loss to Kansas State with an abundance of descriptors — “disappointing," “unacceptable," and “ridiculous” to name a few — but his message remained constant.
Coming off nine straight wins with a nearly-full Hilton Coliseum ready to roar despite snowy conditions outside, this wasn’t going to cut it.
“This is a punch to the gut,” Prohm said. “But I talk to these guys about habits all the time. It’s hard until you see it develop in front of you. They don’t understand, ‘Man, why is coach on me? Why is he so anal about this and that?’ Because I’ve seen it. We’ve been there. We’ve done it — and I understand what translates and what doesn’t — and I talk to them all the time about it
“I’ve got to be more demanding, from me down to the last guy.”
Even if Friday’s mishap was just the opening round of a long conference slate, historical perspective lends credence to Prohm’s strong talk.
The 16-point loss was Iowa State’s worst Big 12 defeat since Feb. 10, 2014, when the Cyclones fell, 102-77, at West Virginia. You must reach back even further to find a more lopsided Big 12 home slip-up — the last of which coming nearly eight years ago on Jan. 23, 2010, in an 84-61 loss versus Kansas.
Simply put, the Cyclones don’t do this in Hilton. Teams rarely stroll into Ames and run Iowa State out of its own building, just as the Wildcats did in the second half en route to their seventh win in the last eight games.
“We didn’t bring a lot of energy,” freshman Lindell Wigginton said in regards to what went wrong down the stretch. “We didn’t buy into the defensive end and were just going one-on-one on offense. That’s how everything went wrong.”
Defensive toughness lacking
As much as the Cyclones defense was exposed in the stats — take a gander at Kansas State’s 55 percent shooting from the field (32-for-58), 50 percent from deep (13-for-26) or its three 20-point scorers — Prohm said many of the miscues came down to pure will and want-to.
“I read something (Friday) a