One up, one down.

Through one game, the ISU men’s

basketball has one win over Lehigh, and now sets its sights on

in-state rival Drake.

The Cyclones will travel to Des

Moines for their first road contest of the young season and will

face a team that head coach Fred Hoiberg knows will be

prepared.

“I know they’ll be ready, I know

that’s for sure,” Hoiberg said. “I know Drake will come out

prepared. We need to come out of the locker room ready to roll.

Coach [Mark] Phelps has done a nice job over the years of mixing up

his defenses, so we have to be prepared for anything.”

In the win over Lehigh, Iowa State

was led by forward Royce White, who ended the game with 25 points

and 11 rebounds. The Bulldogs have a leader of their own in guard

Rayvonte Rice.

Rice, who was Drake’s leading scorer

and rebounder as a freshman with 13.8 points and 4.8 rebounds, was

suspended for the first game of the season following an arrest for

shoplifting. Now Rice is back, and the Cyclones must figure out a

way to stop him like they did C.J. McCollum for Lehigh.

“He can make a play for himself, he

can make a play for his teammates,” Hoiberg said. “It looks like

he’s put on a lot of strength and looks to me like his shot has

gotten more consistent. So he’s going to be a load for

us.”

Forward Melvin Ejim, who averaged

10.3 points and 6.7 rebounds himself last season, knows it will

take a team effort to stop Rice.

“It’s going to be a collective team

effort,” Ejim said. “Showing and helping and making sure he just

doesn’t get on fire. We did a good job last game against McCollum,

who’s a premiere scorer, so we’ve just got to do the same thing we

did, and we’ll be able to contain him.”

Aside from stopping Rice, the

Cyclones are moving forward with Scott Christopherson as their

point guard. After two games as the floor general for the team,

Christopherson said he is getting more and more comfortable with

each time he steps on the floor at the point.

“I feel pretty good,” Christopherson

said. “I definitely have embraced the role of being the point guard

and am really excited about it because I think it gives us the best

chance to win. It’s no different for me than it is for any other

player; after every game you look back, and you find what did you

do well, what can you work on for next game.”

Hoiberg also likes what he’s seen so

far from Christopherson, but hopes for improvement moving

forward.

“He’s getting more comfortable, you

can tell that,” Hoiberg said. “I thought our spacing got cramped

[against Lehigh] in the second half. We worked a lot on that

[Sunday] and we’ll hopefully get another good day of that [on

Monday].”

Whether it is Christopherson, White

or guard Chris Allen — who Hoiberg said is improving from a hip

pointer injury — what the Cyclones will try to do more of is push

the ball in transition. Both Hoiberg and his players believe it is

what Iowa State is best at.

“We’ve got different pushers, we’re

not a one-ball-handler offense,” Hoiberg said. “If Chris Allen gets

it, he’s bringing the ball down, if Scotty gets it, he’s bringing

it down, if Royce gets it, obviously he’s going to bring it down.

What we need to do a better job of is recognizing who has the ball

and getting out and run the floor because we’re best in transition,

and that showed in the second half against Lehigh last

Saturday.”

Christopherson and Ejim both believe

the team is successful in transition because of the players. They

have to hit the shots that come open when running the fast

break.

Keeping up the pace, they said, will

definitely be a goal moving forward.

“I think every team thinks [being

successful in transition] is important; for our team especially,

we’ve got a lot of guys that can knock down shots and make plays

and do different things,” Christopherson said. “The more and more

possessions we can get going, the faster the pace we can get the

game.”

The Cyclones and Bulldogs tip off at

the Knapp Center in Des Moines at 8 p.m. following the women’s

contest.