On Saturday, guard Chris Babb torched the nets in South Padre, Texas, to the tune of a career-high 26 points — 21 of which on 3-pointers — in a 90-63 win over Rice.

In the first three and a half minutes of Iowa State’s in-state matchup against Northern Iowa, the redshirt junior looked like he had not skipped a beat.

Two minutes and 15 seconds into the game, Babb banked in a 3-pointer to give the Cyclones their first points and 30 seconds later he drained a jump shot from the top of the key. Forty-seven seconds later Babb nailed another three, giving the Cyclones an 8-4 lead.

Then, nothing.

Although he still led the Cyclones in scoring at the half, the Panthers held Babb without a shot for the final 16:28 of the first stanza. Babb, who entered the game averaging a team-high — tied with forward Royce White — 14 points per game, and took the Cyclones’ first shot of the second half but missed.

Babb would get off only two more shots in the final 20 minutes, a pair of threes that both caromed off the rim and out, as the Cyclones fell to the rival Panthers 69-62 in front of 13,509 fans at Hilton Coliseum.

“It’s something for us that’s got to be a concerted effort to continue to go get the hot man,” said ISU coach Fred Hoiberg of getting the ball to Babb. “We ran plays for him but we just couldn’t shake him, couldn’t get him open.”

The Arlington, Texas, native was not alone in his 3-point shooting woes. After hitting on three of 10 treys in the first half, the lone ISU field goal from beyond the arc came from guard Chris Allen, who made a late three with 40 seconds remaining and the Cyclones down eight.

“This is D-I basketball. I mean a team isn’t going to just let one guy beat them. So after Babb started hitting, they found out a way to stop him from getting shots because they knew he wanted to get some threes,” Allen said. “It seemed like nothing else was just falling for us.”

While Babb struggled to score, Northern Iowa’s bench flourished. Led by Matt Morrison’s 14 points and Marc Sonnen’s 12, the Panthers’ bench accounted for 34 of the team’s 69 points.

“I think we just trusted in each other enough to play the same defense we always do,” Sonnen said. “[Babb] hit some shots at the beginning and was hitting a lot but in the second half it seemed that we played pretty good defense and team defense which really helped us out a lot.”

Following the game, UNI coach Ben Jacobson praised the shooting ability of Iowa State’s guards. But it was the Panthers’ defense that rushed to Iowa State’s shooters quickly and stifled them all night long.

“We wanted to do what we could to stay close to him [and] limit his touches that were going to be feet set easy looks where you get a hand up late,” Jacobson said of Babb. “We needed to have a hand up early and try to force him a little bit wider and then as Marc said, a lot of trust and a lot of effort.”

The Cyclones, who fall to 5-2 on the season, have now lost their last three in Hilton Coliseum against their foe from Cedar Falls.

“They make you work for everything you get,” Hoiberg said. “Ben does a terrific job with those kids. As far as making it tough on you, they played the exact game that they had to coming in here playing on the road, and they did a great job executing that plan.”