No matter what Johnny Orr started to say, the Iowa State coach always seemed to finish by mentioning Danny Manning.
Then again, it’s tough to ignore someone who scores 29 points, snatches seven rebounds, dishes out seven assists and steals six passes against your team.
Kansas’ All-American put up those numbers during Saturday afternoon’s 82-72 victory over the Cyclones in Allen Fieldhouse.
“I thought we played better than we had in a long time,” Orr said after the game. “Manning was just too much for us. He’s just a fantastic player.”
Saturday’s defeat was another bitter pill for the Cyclones who have now dropped seven straight Big Eight Conference games – five on the road – to plummet from a No. 10 ranking in the Associated Press poll to the conference basement in just three weeks.
“But I think we’re starting to come back,” Orr stressed. “I was happy we didn’t give up. We fought to the end. Manning was terrific, though. I can’t say enough about Danny Manning. He was tremendous.”
Iowa State came into this one following depressing losses at home to Oklahoma State and at Colorado.
“I was disappointed how we played against Oklahoma State and Colorado,” Orr remarked. “I thought we were more intense today. We just had a difficult time with Manning.”
Momentarily, someone mentioned Lafester Rhodes, the Cyclones’ second-leading scorer. After missing seven of eight first-half shots, Rhodes potted the Cyclones’ first four baskets of the second half in an attempt to bring his club back from a 44-34 halftime hole.
“Yeah, he came back in the second half, and got us going,” Orr said of Rhodes.
Then what did Orr say? You guessed it.
“If we could have just stopped Manning.”
Orr did, however, cast a slight pall over Manning’s do-it-all performance by hurling a barb at the officiating.
“You can’t guard him if you touch him and they call a foul,” Orr said.
Still, Orr wasn’t taking anything away from Manning’s performance even if he and at least one of his players suggested that the officials took the game away from them.
Rhodes, for instance, complained that Kansas was able to jump to early leads of 7-0 and 20-6 because “the officials weren’t giving us any breaks. In the second half, they gave us a break for a minute, then they tightened up on us again.”
Meanwhile, senior Jeff Grayer, the Big Eight’s leading scorer (24.9) scored 30 points, but was overshadowed by Manning, and he knew it.
“It was typical Danny Manning,” Grayer said. “He passed the ball, scored, rebounded. He did everything. You name it. He did it.”
Teammate Elmer Robinson agreed, saying: “He (Manning) played well. He does night in and night out. And he likes to play against Iowa State. I’m sure of that.”
Added Rhodes: “He really wanted this game.”
Why?
“Because we beat them up in Ames,” he answered.
Indeed, Manning scored 32 points in vain last month in ISU’s Hilton Coliseum. Iowa State won, 88-78, in its conference opener. A few days later, the Cyclones blasted Nebraska, 114-76. They haven’t won a league game since.
“It’s tough,” said Grayer about his team’s tailspin, “but we have to hang in there. Today at least we put up a real good fight.”
Right now Orr is up a creek without an oar, but the ISU coach wasn’t pessimistic based on his team’s performance Saturday.
“We had to play Missouri, Oklahoma back-to-back and then at Kansas State, and all those teams in a row hurt us mentally,” Orr said. “We got down in the dumps. Today I saw us start to come around. Hopefully, we’ll come back by (Big Eight) tournament time.”
Iowa State, now 16-9 overall but just 2-7 in the league, will face Missouri and Kansas State in its next two games, both at home.
