No. 2 Arizona Wildcats Hold Off No. 7 Iowa State Cyclones Thanks To a Jaden Bradley Buzzer Beater
Some games you remember forever. Friday night in Kansas City was one of them. Arizona and Iowa State gave the 19,450 fans packed inside T-Mobile Center a game they’ll be talking about for years. A back-and-forth, punch-for-punch, three-pointer-for-three-pointer battle that ended the only way a game like this deserves to end: a buzzer-beater.
Jaden Bradley took the inbound pass with 15 seconds left, Iowa State’s Tamin Lipsey having just tied the game at 80-80 with a cold-blooded three from the wing. Arizona Head Coach Tommy Lloyd, cool as a cucumber, didn’t even call a timeout. He just watched Bradley walk the ball up the floor like a man with absolutely zero nerves. Bradley drove right, elevated over Cyclone freshman Killyan Toure, and kissed the fall-away jumper off the glass as the horn sounded.
Arizona 82, Iowa State 80. The bench exploded. The crowd erupted. And somewhere, every Iowa State fan felt their heart fall straight through the floor.
Jaden Bradley Silenced Every Doubter In 15 Seconds
Bradley had taken heat all season for winning Big 12 Player of the Year. Some thought it was a stretch. Some thought it was political. Bradley, apparently, had receipts. He finished the night with 15 points and 7 assists, but none of those numbers matter. What matters is that when the moment was biggest, he was the one holding the ball. No timeout. No play drawn up. Just a 31-2 team’s best player doing what best players do.
Anthony Dell’Orso Was Unconscious From Deep
If Bradley was the headliner, Dell’Orso was the show-stealer nobody saw coming. The Arizona reserve guard went 6-of-9 from three-point range, including a ridiculous 4-of-4 clip in the second half alone. He finished with a career-high 26 points and single-handedly kept Arizona afloat every time Iowa State threatened to run away with the game.
Somewhere in the second half, Dell’Orso and Milan Momcilovic started trading threes like they were exchanging business cards. Four straight possessions, back and forth, both of them draining shots from the perimeter with defenders in their faces. The crowd didn’t know whether to cheer or just stand there with their mouths open. They mostly did both.
Milan Momcilovic Gave Everything He Had
Here’s the tough part: Iowa State’s Milan Momcilovic was absolutely brilliant, and he still lost. The junior matched a career-high with eight three-pointers and scored 28 points. He hit a buzzer-beater of his own at halftime to send the Cyclones into the locker room up six. He hit contested shots from the top of the key, from the corners, in traffic. The guy was locked in.
Joshua Jefferson added 21 points. Killyan Toure, who had been stuck in a shooting slump, chipped in 12. Lipsey’s three with 15 seconds left looked like the play of the tournament.
And still, Arizona found a way to win.
Iowa State Showed They Belong In the Elite Conversation
There are no moral victories in tournament basketball. Every Iowa State fan knows that. But if you watched that game and came away thinking the Cyclones are anything less than a legitimate NCAA Tournament threat, you weren’t paying attention.
Iowa State went toe-to-toe with the No. 2 team in the country for 40 minutes. They outrebounded Arizona on second chances early. They clawed back from deficits. They hit a tying shot with 15 seconds left against one of the best teams in America. That’s not a fluke. That’s a team that knows how to compete.
What’s Next For Arizona and Iowa State
Arizona, now 31-2, moves on to the Big 12 Tournament championship game, where they’ll face either No. 14 Kansas or No. 5 Houston. Ivan Kharchenkov added 17 points, and Tobe Awake quietly put together a 10-point, 10-rebound double-double to support the cause. The Wildcats are deep, they’re talented, and they’re playing with the kind of confidence that comes from knowing you can win ugly when you have to.
Iowa State packs its bags and heads home to Ames, where it’ll watch the NCAA Tournament selection show Sunday evening at Hilton Coliseum. The Cyclones are widely projected as a No. 2 or No. 3 seed, with St. Louis looking like a likely destination for their first-weekend games. A deep March run feels not just possible, but probable.
Friday night’s loss will hurt for a while. But if the Cyclones can play like that against Arizona, they can play like that against anybody.
