They’ve all seen each other twice before. They know each other’s plays and personnel. Now, the 10 men’s basketball teams of the Big 12 Conference will all converge on Kansas City, Mo., for the Big 12 men’s basketball tournament that gets underway Wednesday.

No. 3 seed Iowa State kicks off Big 12 tournament action when it plays No. 6 seed Texas in Thursday’s final quarterfinal game at the Sprint Center.

“We need to do a good job of coming out with a lot of urgency. We know it’s a very important game for Texas,” said ISU coach Fred Hoiberg in his weekly news conference Monday. “We’ve just got to go out and hopefully play our game and play with confidence.”

The Cyclones (22-9, 12-6 Big 12) and Longhorns (19-12, 9-9) split the regular-season series as Iowa State picked up a 77-71 win in Ames and Texas won in Austin,62-55.

ISU senior guard Scott Christopherson, who scored a team-high 23 in ISU’s final regular-season win against Baylor on Saturday, expects that both teams will be ready for a battle Thursday night.

“I expect it to be a dogfight,” Christopherson said. “This is postseason play, this is what it’s all about. I think both teams realize what’s at stake. This is why we play.”

The Longhorns have made the NCAA tournament in all of head coach Rick Barnes’ 13 seasons dating back to 1998-99. However, a 14th consecutive bid is in jeopardy with many projecting Texas as a “bubble” team for the NCAA tournament. Many think a win against Iowa State on Thursday would go a long way in helping the Longhorns secure a tournament berth.

“They’re going to come ready to play,” Hoiberg said. “Rick Barnes has this long streak right now of NCAA appearances and I know those players aren’t going to want to let him down. There’s a very good chance they’re in anyway, but I know they’d like to solidify it.”

Along with a chance to improve their own seeding in the NCAA tournament comes a chance for the Cyclones — who have only one player on the active roster in Chris Allen that has played in an NCAA tournament — to experience a tournament atmosphere before they join the field of 68.

“It certainly gives you a taste of it,” Hoiberg said. “You’ve got both school’s bands there, you’ve got both school’s cheerleaders there, you’ve got both mascots there and it does it gives you a little taste for what you’ve got coming up on the big stage with the NCAA tournament.”

This week will mark Christopherson’s final trip to the Big 12 tournament, where he has never won a game.

“I just think that our team should have a real confidence about us and also we should be extremely hungry,” Christopherson said. “We have an opportunity in front of us to do a lot of great things, a lot of things maybe guys on our team don’t even necessarily realize are possible yet.”

Iowa State and Texas will tip off at 8:30 p.m. Thursday.