As Iowa State hosts the Missouri Tigers on Wednesday, memories of a former Cyclone will be in the air.

The athletic department will retire the No. 35 jersey of the late Barry Stevens, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack on Feb. 21, 2007. Stevens is partially credited with coining the term “Hilton Magic” when he scored 40 points, including the game-winner at the buzzer, in a 73-72 upset over the No. 10 Tigers on Feb. 8, 1983.

“To have his family and some of his friends back celebrating with us, it’s long overdue,” said ISU coach Greg McDermott. “It’s unfortunate that Barry can’t be here to see it happen himself. He meant an awful lot to this program and the tradition that was started here back in the 1980’s.

“It’ll be a special night, I think, for anyone that’s in the building. I’m honored to be part of it in a small way.”

Stevens ended his Cyclone career as Iowa State’s all-time leading scorer with 2,190 points, which is now second only to his former teammate and brother-in-law Jeff Grayer.

Honoring Stevens is part of the season-long celebration of the centennial season of Iowa State men’s basketball. McDermott said the team first realized the importance of the occasion while watching the commemorative DVD, “Iowa State Basketball … A Century of Memories .. Moments … and Magic,” during Iowa State’s trip to take on Oregon State in November.

“The history of our program is very important to us as a coaching staff, and it’s become very important to our team,” McDermott said. “It’s something that we’ll continue to talk about because there’s a lot of hard work that has gone on before us and we’re expected to carry that flag and move this program forward.”

Rahshon Clarkand Wesley Johnson said the team hadn’t talked about the importance of Stevens as a group, but Johnson said he realized the importance of Stevens to the program.

“All we can do is try to get a win for him,” Johnson said.

Welcome back

The logos between the three-point arc and baseline on both ends of the floor of Hilton Coliseum read “Big 12 Conference Basketball Opening Tip Week.”

While the Cyclones return home for their Big 12 home opener against the Tigers, the Cyclone Alley student section returns for the first time since before winter break.

“It seems so long since we’ve played a game with students here, and I know our players are excited to have Cyclone Alley back in full force … we are definitely looking forward to being back home,” McDermott said. “We understand how good Missouri is and how well we’re gonna have to play. But our fans – we can feed off them. We have in the past, and I hope we will on Wednesday.”

The Cyclones hope the home crowd can help them pull out a victory over Missouri, which defeated Texas on Saturday in their conference opener. The Cyclones need to rebound from the loss to Baylor.

Clark understands the importance of not starting the conference season with two straight losses.

“It’s very important. You don’t want to start out at the very bottom,” Clark said. “If you start out at the very bottom, it’s tough to try to work your way back up to the top. If we practice hard and come focused – don’t get me wrong, Missouri is a great team – so we need to stay locked in and focused so we can hopefully get that win. So, it would be great to be 1-1 instead of 0-2.”

Injury update

McDermott said Clark was still battling a bad knee during the Baylor game on Saturday. Clark said he didn’t feel like he was completely at full strength, but expected to be fine for Wednesday’s game.

“It felt OK, it wasn’t 100 percent. It kind of got banged up knee-to-knee with somebody,” Clark said. “I’ve got to deal with it, I’ve got games to play, I can’t worry about it.”