It seems the tests never end for the ISU men’s basketball team.

After suffering their worst loss of the season at the expense of the Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday, the Cyclones have another tall order at hand.

Seven feet tall, to be exact.

Nebraska center Aleks Maric has been on a tear, imposing his will on the rest of the Big 12 conference.

Maric had 31 points against Missouri in the Cornhuskers’ last game, and 41 against Kansas State just two weeks ago.

“His last few games, people have struggled with him,” said ISU coach Greg McDermott. “He is as good of a scorer on the low block as there is in our league. As I’m watching him [on tape] last night I wonder who is better in the country when he catches it.”

On the season, Maric is averaging nearly 18 points and eight rebounds a game, while hitting 57 percent of his field goal attempts.

While Maric knows what to do when he gets the basketball, it’s his work before the ball gets to him that separates him from others, McDermott said.

“The thing that he does such a good job of, that I’ve been so impressed with, is he does so much of his work before he catches the basketball,” McDermott said. “He creates an angle with a seal before the ball is ever received so in a lot of cases he is shooting layups.”

Iowa State did a good job of containing Maric in the team’s first meeting of the season, a 71-62 Cyclone win in January.

Maric scored 20 points, but wasn’t able to take over the game like he has in many others this season.

Jiri Hubalek will once again draw the difficult assignment of guarding Maric.

But if the Cyclones put too much emphasis on the Cornhuskers’ inside game, they may get burned by capable outside shooters.

“Jiri did a great job on [Maric], forcing him off the block and at least trying to make him score over the top,” McDermott said. “Nebraska just poses some challenges in deciding what you want to give up.”

Nebraska is shooting 38 percent from behind the three-point line as a team, led by Jay-R Strowbridge (46 percent), Ryan Anderson (43 percent) and Marcus Perry (41 percent).

Nebraska’s emergence as an outside team has fueled Maric’s recent strong play.

“It seems to me that they are getting Maric even more touches than they were when we played them the first time,” McDermott said. “He has become a more focal part of their offense – not that he wasn’t before – but it seems like they want to get it in his hands every possession. When that happens, they have a chance to be successful.”

Both teams come into Wednesday’s game with five wins, and a Cyclone victory could boost Iowa State’s confidence as the regular season winds down.

“We are both sitting there with five wins in the league,” McDermott said. “Anytime you can move yourself up one notch in the league standings I think for us, that is something that we can strive for.”