Last season, Jordan Bohannon thanked Iowa State for the “Memz” after Iowa won at Hilton Coliseum. Lately, the memories haven’t been very good for the Cyclones in the men’s basketball edition of the Cy-Hawk series.

Iowa’s 105-77 victory over Iowa State Friday night is the largest ever in the history of the series, and the Hawkeyes have won three games in a row against the Cyclones for the first time in three decades.

“I have been involved in a lot of rivalry games in my career,” Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said. “They all have a different feel to them. The players know it, the coaches know it, the fans know it. So to be able to do that I think says a lot about our players and their ability to focus and concentrate and kind of put the distractions aside.”

The last time Iowa won three straight against Iowa State was from 1988-90 under Tom Davis. A year ago, the Hawkeyes defeated the Cyclones in Ames for the first time since 2003.

Luka Garza opened the game with a 3-pointer, and the Hawkeyes led by nine less than four minutes into the game. But the All-American center picked up his second foul near the 10-minute mark of the first half and spent the remainder of the half on the bench.

Iowa State responded with a 15-2 run with the game’s best player no longer on the court. The Cyclones took a three-point lead with seven minutes and 38 seconds left in the first half.

Iowa State kept that lead for one minute and eight seconds until Iowa went back on top. And the Hawkeyes never gave the lead back. In his fourth year as a Hawkeye but only his second time on the court against the Cyclones, Jack Nunge stepped up in the post without Garza on the floor.

Nunge scored 15 of his 17 points in the first half and led Iowa on a 12-0 run near the end of the first 20 minutes of play.

“This is definitely something I look forward to every year,” Nunge said. “It doesn’t matter how good they are, how good we are. It’s going to be a battle for 40 minutes, so we had to bring the energy and be ready to play.”

Coming out of the tunnel for the second half, the Hawkeyes were ready. And the game didn’t stay much of a battle for long.

A Jordan Bohannon 3-pointer started Iowa’s 9-0 run to start the second half.

Back out on the floor without foul trouble to worry about, Garza went on a stretch where he scored 21 consecutive points for the Hawkeyes. Before the game was too much of a blowout to warrant Garza staying in the game, the senior scored 25 points and hit all 10 of his shots — including five 3-pointers — in the second half.

Garza tallied 34 points on the night.

Eight native Iowans make up Iowa’s roster, including Austin Ash, who drained a three for the final Hawkeye points of the night. All of them grew up seeing this rivalry first hand.

And Garza, a Washington, D.C., native is caught up in the rivalry too, as is every player in the Black and Gold, no matter where they are from.

“I’ve grown to understand what this rivalry means,” Garza said. “Last year to be able to get a win over there when we hadn’t done so in so long, that also helped develop the meaning of what this really is.

“We all have adopted that Iowa mentality to make sure that we protect our state as the Hawkeye State.”