AMES, Iowa -- No. 14 Iowa State looked to be in trouble Monday night.
The Cyclones trailed for the first 31 minutes against No. 4 Kansas before junior guard Deonte Burton connected on a 3-pointer.
That bomb, however, got Iowa State engaged in an 11-0 run, and the Cyclones controlled the Jayhawks over the final stretch for an 85-72 victory.
Junior point guard Monte Morris led the way for Iowa State with 21 points, nine assists and no turnovers.
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"We were there, we were close, we were close, then we finally hit them,'' first-year Iowa State coach Steve Prohm said. "And when we hit them with that run, it's hard to respond sometimes on the road for teams.''
Senior Georges Niang scored all but four of his 19 points in the second half, then credited Morris for keeping the Cyclones (16-4, 5-3 Big 12) afloat as Kansas grabbed a seven-point halftime lead.
"We go how he goes. That guy has carried us this whole season. I couldn't be happier for the kid,'' Niang said. "He's just doing a great job for us, really fighting through ball screens, doing a great job of getting us all involved. He's really doing a great job of leading this team. I would say Monte sparked the plug.''
The 11-point blitz by the Cyclones ended when Jayhawks' senior forward Perry Ellis connected with 6:55 left.
Still, the Cyclones were up by seven and never relinquished control. A 3-point basket by senior forward Abdel Nader with 4:36 left and a bucket by Niang 30 seconds later overcame back-to-back hoops by the Jayhawks' Ellis and junior point guard Frank Mason III.
"My teammates and coaches put emphasis on defense,'' said Morris, "and I tried to get us going a little bit, trying to slow Mason down. He's quick. He's fast. He's strong. I tried to do what I could.''
In falling to 16-4 overall and 5-3 in the Big 12 with its third straight road defeat, Kansas committed 10 of its 16 turnovers in the second half, including six by Mason.
"Our ability to finish a pass to make a play -- we've got guys wide open and can't get it to them -- is weak,'' Kansas coach Bill Self said. "We got frazzled and there wasn't a lot of leadership out there.''
Ellis was the only consistent Jayhawk, netting a game-high 23 points on 10-of-16 shooting. Yet he could not provide many answers for how his team was outscored 49-29 in the second half.
"We lost some composure and you can't do that when you're away,'' Ellis said.
Mason finished with 16 points, while junior guard Wayne Selden added 11 but did not score a second-half field goal.
Nader added 17 points for the Cyclones, while junior guard Matt Thomas had 13.
"You can't get to high and too low,'' said Prohm, aware his team won its fourth straight. "We're only eight games into the conference, and now we've got to go face a top-five team in the country on Saturday (Texas A&M).''
Mason canned a 3-pointer and converted a fast-break layup at the buzzer to give Kansas five late points and a 43-36 halftime lead. Mason scored nine points to share first-half scoring honors with Selden and the Cyclones' Morris.
The Jayhawks led by as many as 10 points on a 3-pointer by guard Devonte Graham just 10 minutes into the game. Kansas made 19 of 33 field-goal attempts (57.6 percent) and forged a 20-15 first-half advantage on the glass.
Iowa State closed within two but never led in the first half. Nader added eight points for the Cyclones, but Niang, who came into the game as the second-leading scorer in the Big 12 (19.3 average) was limited to four first-half points on 2-for-8 shooting.
NOTES: Iowa State junior G Monte Morris was named Monday as Big 12 player of the week. He averaged 19.4 points in the Cyclones' five previous games, shooting 62.7 percent. Morris leads the Big 12 in assists, steals and assist-to-turnover ratio. ... Iowa State won three of the previous four meetings against Kansas and on Monday became the first Big 12 program to beat a Bill Self-coached Kansas team four times in five meetings. ... Junior C Landen Lucas remained in the starting lineup for Kansas after drawing his first start in the previous game, against Texas. Lucas grabbed 10 rebounds in that win. ... Kansas went 9-9 in Big 12 road games the previous two seasons and are 1-3 this season. The Jayhawks went 60-22 in conference road games in Self's first 10 seasons as coach.
