By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY — Plans work until they don’t.

Shots fall until they don’t.

A win is in your grasp until it slips away.

Iowa’s 89-80 loss to Iowa State was just another regret for the Hawkeyes, who did everything against the third-ranked team in the nation until they didn’t.

It’s why Iowa State is basking in the rare air at the top of the national rankings and the Hawkeyes are sitting at 7-3 and wondering why their record isn’t a little more polished.

The best teams know how to stay in a chase for 40 minutes and then make the big plays because the other team isn’t converting their opportunities.

It’s why Iowa senior Payton Sandfort tried to squeeze something good out of the anguish of a game that either slipped away or was snatched, depending on where the view is in this in-state rivalry.

“We’re right there,” he said. “We probably should have beat Michigan on the road (Saturday’s 85-83 road loss), we’re right there with the No. 3 team in the country. So we’re right there. I’m proud of everybody. You know, we have a lot to build on. That’s what Coach said. We make a few plays here and there, and we’re probably 10-0.”

The few plays here and there belonged to the Cyclones, who closed the game with a 15-6 run as the shots Iowa made throughout the game while building a 13-point first-half lead and a nine-point second-half lead started falling short or rattling the rim.

The game was tied at 74 when Iowa’s Owen Freeman went to the free-throw line with 3:34 to play. Freeman missed both free throws, the first misses from the line after 11 makes for the Hawkeyes, then the Cyclones took the lead for the first time on Nate Heise’s layup 29 seconds later.

Heise’s drive was among so many killer shots from Iowa State in the final 6 ½ minutes, whether it was Tamin Lipsey’s two 3-pointers — one that got the Cyclones within 70-69 and another that tied the game at 72 — or the three from Curtis Jones with 1:40 to play that gave Iowa State an 81-76 lead.

“They’re good players, and they stepped up and made shots,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. “You’ve got to give it to them. You know, we can talk about how we should have done this, and we could have done that. They made shots. They’re very good players.”

McCaffery did some of his own second-guessing in his post-game press conference. He used just eight players in the game — seven played double-digit minutes, and four of those players played more than 31 minutes. 

McCaffery wondered aloud whether he should have given Pryce Sandfort more than four minutes, whether freshman Cooper Koch should have gotten some time on his return from the injured list, whether Payton Sandfort’s 39 minutes were too many.

McCaffery’s change in the lineup to start the game worked well, but had its flaws. He went with a four-guard lineup, putting fifth-year veteran Drew Thelwell into the lineup and taking Ladji Dembele out and using him off the bench.

Thelwell had 10 points and six rebounds — the second number a little disconcerting to McCaffery afterwards given that at 6-foot-3 Thelwell was one of the smallest players on the court — while Dembele matched a career high with 11 points off the bench.

Iowa State coach TJ Otzelberger said the smaller lineup led to more spacing on the court that disrupted the Cyclones. But Iowa State had a 46-34 rebounding edge that included 18 offensive rebounds that led to 20 second-chance points.

“You run the risk of that happening,” McCaffery said of the rebounding disadvantage. “I thought our small lineup was really good. We had two turnovers in the second half. We had plenty of shot opportunities to win the game, and made a bunch and then didn’t make them. I could go big and get more rebounds, but then who knows what would happen on the other end?”

What was happening on both ends for most of the game was Iowa matching, and often exceeding, what the Cyclones were doing, matching answer for answer and making Otzelberger wonder if his ability to calculate where his team was had gone awry.

“Not to say my math is great, but every time I looked up there, it just seemed like we were always down five, we’re always down six, now we’re down eight,” Otzelberger said.

Then came the closing minutes, when the Cyclones were all about addition and the Hawkeyes were all about subtraction. Iowa made just three of its last 17 shots. The Cyclones made four of their last five.

Big shots, big misses.

It was an equation of frustration for the Hawkeyes.

“I think it seemed like they made all the plays down the stretch,” Sandfort said. “It was a really good game for, you know, 37 minutes, and then they just hit big shots and we didn’t. And that’s, sometimes what basketball comes down to — just who makes the shots when you need them.”

Photo: Iowa State’s Nate Heise drives to the basket for the go-ahead layup late in the second half of Thursday’s 89-80 win over Iowa. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)