Packing their bags for their leg of the Big 12/Pac 10 Hardwood Series, the ISU (6-2) men’s basketball team is headed west for a game with the California Golden Bears (4-3) on Saturday.

There are plenty of numbers to throw around for Saturday’s 10 p.m. tip-off in Berkeley, from the 1,535 miles from campus to campus, to the No. 25 ranking that the Bears are going to bring against an ISU team that is 7-102 all-time against ranked opponents on the road.

“We knew this was going to be a tough week with two teams that were picked to win their leagues — our road just got harder,” ISU coach Greg McDermott said after losing to Northern Iowa on Wednesday.

The Cyclones have lost their last two games, against Northwestern and Northern Iowa, by a combined five points after starting the season with six straight wins. Iowa State’s leading scorers have been held in check in the second half of their recent contests, and that will need to change against a California team that hasn’t been beaten at home and is averaging 78.7 points per game.

Losing to an undefeated New Mexico team by eight in Albuquerque on Wednesday, the Bears aren’t without their own unexpected slide this season, due in part to major injury concerns.

Theo Robertson, a 6-foot-6-inch senior forward, has averaged 18 points in the two contests he’s been able to play for the Bears this year, and his fellow forward, Harper Kemp, hasn’t even seen the floor for Cal yet. Robertson’s return to the lineup for Saturday’s game is still questionable.

Iowa State lost senior forward Jamie Vanderbeken to a knee injury against UNI, and his status is currently unclear, but the Cyclones know what they want to get out of the trip.

“It might be good for us to get away a little and reflect on what’s transpired this week,” McDermott said.

“We have to be more consistent with the way we do things, and that falls on the coaching staff and the way we do things,” he said.

Guard Lucca Staiger and forward Craig Brackins, two of the three leading scorers for the Cyclones, went scoreless from the field in the second half, a statistic that will likely need to change for the team to extend its Hardwood Challenge record to 3-0.

“We were a little flat on offense, like we were on Saturday,” McDermott said, “and, unfortunately, like we were the last two days in practice.”

The Bears were picked to finish first in the Pac 10, and while they are just a game over .500 early in the year, their losses were to former Cyclone Wesley Johnson’s No. 8 Syracuse team, a six-point defeat to No. 15 Ohio State, and Wednesday to the aforementioned New Mexico team that has received votes in both major polls.

Preseason polls speculated that Iowa State would finish eighth in the Big 12, but after a 6-0 start and the return of Brackins, Staiger and a host of newcomers, expectations rose. The team is still averaging 77.8 points per contest, but with a combined 50 points in its two most recent second halves, the players are ready to turn things around.

“It’s not about how many touches I get — it’s about whatever goes well for the team,” Brackins said Wednesday.

McDermott and his club would gladly take a win Saturday, whether it means Brackins scores 40 or four. The Cyclone coach is 0-12 against ranked opponents since arriving in Ames, but Brackins has averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds in his previous Hardwood Challenge events.

The Cyclones don’t get another game at Hilton Coliseum until Dec. 11, when the rival Iowa Hawkeyes come to town for a 7 p.m. tip-off for the Cy-Hawk Series.