Following a blowout loss at the hands of Drake, the men’s basketball team will host Iowa (6-4) on Saturday in hopes of righting the ship – and avoiding being swept by intrastate teams for the second consecutive season.

In Des Moines on Wednesday, Iowa State (3-4) suffered its biggest ever loss to Drake, a 35-point drubbing in which coach Greg McDermott thought he saw his team hit a season low point.

“We got down on ourselves – I think we probably felt sorry for ourselves and, again, I think it’s because there’s a lot of young people that haven’t been in this situation,” McDermott said. “They haven’t had their teeth kicked in before as a college player because, even in the games we’ve lost, we’ve been competitive.

“This was the first time someone has really jumped on us, and we didn’t respond the way that I would have hoped we would have responded.”

Against Iowa, McDermott will get his sixth chance to notch his first win over another Iowa school as Iowa State’s head coach. The game will also be a chance for the Cyclones to record their 400th win at Hilton Coliseum.

The Hawkeyes enter the game on a two-game win streak and are coming off an impressive 62-55 win over Northern Iowa on Wednesday night in Cedar Falls.

“Iowa had, in my mind, a very impressive win last night. UNI was playing very good basketball and that’s a difficult place to win,” McDermott said. “I was able to watch the game last night and just thought they did a terrific job of executing – really throughout the game, but especially down the stretch.”

During Wednesday’s game, Iowa welcomed the return of junior guard Tony Freeman, who scored 15 points in the contest. Freeman had missed the first nine games of the season with a fractured bone in his foot, but plans to make an impact against the Cyclones.

ISU forward Alex Thompson will be facing his former team for the first time since he transferred from the University of Iowa following the 2005-06 season. Although he said it will be business as usual to compete against the Hawks, Thompson said he remains friends with some of the Iowa players and has taken an interest in their season as well.

“It’s changed quite a bit since I’ve left,” Thompson said, noting that the team has undergone a coaching change since his departure. “I still feel like there’s a lot of people in the program that I respect a lot, and some of the seniors I came in with and am good friends with.”

Wesley Johnson is questionable for practice Friday and, McDermott, is still unsure whether he will play Saturday.

“I never know until shortly before a practice or shortly before a game whether or not he’s going to play, and that’s just the hand we’ve been dealt,” McDermott said. “As frustrating as it is for our fans, as frustrating as it is for me, it doesn’t touch the level of frustration that Wesley has.”

With or without Johnson, senior Rahshon Clark is well aware of the implications of the Iowa rivalry and said he would like to see the team increase its intensity for Saturday’s showdown.

“When we play Iowa we have to do everything – hustle and play defense. If our shots are not falling, we have to rely on our defense and stop them from scoring,” Clark said. “We just have to go in there with the mind-set that we’re not going to play how we played against Drake – we’re going to go out there and outplay Iowa.”