Iowa State once again put itself in position to win on Saturday at Colorado.

And again, the Cyclones, who lost, 75-64, to the Buffaloes, came up short for the ninth time in 11 games. In many of those games, especially in the month of February, the Cyclones kept themselves within striking distance to the end.

In almost all of them, it was their opponents that struck last.

“Pretty much what it comes down to is toughness. That’s what the games are getting decided by – who’s the tougher team,” junior guard Bryan Petersen said. “Toughness pretty much goes with everything – making defensive stops, taking the right shots, making the open shot – we’ve just got to keep working on it.”

Assistant coach Jeff Rutter said Iowa State does not have much room to make mistakes, and that’s made it hard for the team to make the plays down the stretch to be able to take over a game.

“It’s that margin for error that’s pretty thin right now, and really has been all year,” Rutter said. “It forces you to strive to play the perfect game, which you always strive to do, but it makes it difficult.”

Senior Rahshon Clark reiterated Rutter’s comment, saying Iowa State can’t lose every aspect of the game just because one thing isn’t going well.

“Towards the end, we try to go a little bit too fast. We don’t take our time and do what we need to, or we can’t make a shot,” Clark said. “That happens to a lot of teams, I guess, but we just have to figure out there are those stretches that we need to make stops on the defensive end when we’re not making shots.”

The Cyclones also need to figure out how to win on the road. Iowa State is 0-7 in Big 12 road play, with its last chance for a win coming Wednesday at Missouri. The last time Iowa State went winless on the road in the conference was the 2003-04 season, before any current Cyclones were on the team.

Iowa State’s last four road games – at Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Colorado – all saw the Cyclones have a chance to win in the second half. Once again, Petersen pointed to toughness being the key.

“Tough teams win road games, and we haven’t been able to do that yet, so definitely towards the end of the year heading into the conference tournament, we want to pick up one,” Petersen said.

“It’s not going to be a road game down at the Big 12 Tournament, but it’s not going to be Hilton either, so it’d be helpful to pick up one.”

Picking up a road game is possible – Iowa State has won its last two games at Missouri – and might be this season’s silver lining.

Injury report

Clark sat out the first game of his collegiate career Saturday, and is heading into Wednesday’s game with a sore knee. Senior Jiri Hubalek also suffered an injury, spraining an ankle in a game against Colorado.

Rutter said the team hoped both of them could play, and Petersen said the Cyclones weren’t preparing any differently. He did say losing Clark on Saturday was hard to recover from, especially since the team found out right before the game.

“It was big because he’s probably our best defensive player – he’s done it all year, taking away the opposing team’s best player,” Petersen said. “His rebounding is huge, his offensive rebounding is probably the best in the country, I think. And he’s our senior leader.”

Where’s McDermott?

Rutter stepped in for head coach Greg McDermott’s weekly press conference on Monday, much to the confusion of the local press.

Rutter explained that McDermott had gone to Florida to recruit on Sunday and was told there was a 50-50 chance his plane would land in either Ames or Sioux City on Sunday night and was given the choice to stay in Florida until Monday, avoiding the brutal Iowa weather for a day.

“I asked [McDermott] ‘Is it safe to assume that there wasn’t a coin toss involved in this decision?’ He said, ‘That is correct,'” Rutter said.