The ISU men’s basketball team looks to regroup Saturday against the Kansas Jayhawks after a crushing defeat at the hands of the Kansas State Wildcats.

The Cyclones (14-8, 4-5 Big 12) fell 66-63 in Manhattan on Wednesday due in part to sub-par nights from Will Blalock and Rahshon Clark. Both players went in to Wednesday’s game averaging more than 14 points per game, but Blalock managed just nine and Clark only six.

Guard Curtis Stinson was the first to say that the game against the Wildcats needs to be forgotten in a hurry.

“We need to regroup and get focused on Kansas,” Stinson said. “We have had some success [in Lawrence] and we hope to tell our guys about it. They are playing better than anyone in the nation right now, so we know how tough it is going to be.”

Iowa State got another solid game out of Jessan Gray, who added 11 points. Gray, who has been filling in for the injured Ross Marsden, has scored in double-figures in two straight games and three of the last four.

Kansas State didn’t slow Stinson, either, allowing him to score at least 20 points for the sixth consecutive game with a 22-point performance that made him just the 12th player in ISU history to top 1,500 points in a career with 1,501 points to date.

Stinson has topped 20 in 13 of the Cyclones 22 games.

“[Stinson] is playing great,” said ISU coach Wayne Morgan. “There’s no one in the conference playing as well as he as right now.”

There may be no team in the conference, however, that’s playing better right now than Kansas.

After a sluggish start to the season, the Jayhawks are currently riding a six-game winning streak and have won 13 of their last 15 games. A win on the road against a hot Kansas team could do wonders for the Cyclones anemic NCAA tournament resume, as they sit in a three-way tie for sixth in the conference.

“Every game is huge, no question about it,” Morgan said. “We have had our hands full with big games right now and we might have our hands too full at Kansas. They put a pretty good beating on us [in Ames].”

The Jayhawks’ Allen Fieldhouse has been a house of horrors for many teams in recent years, but it has been a place that the Cyclones have enjoyed success in recent years, going 3-3 in their past six trips.

“We’ve had some success there,” Morgan said.

“I don’t know that it’s the fact that we go there every year as much as it is that we play them twice in a year and we are familiar with them.”

Iowa State will be looking to avenge their 95-85 loss to the Jayhawks in January. Tip-off on is set for 3 p.m. Saturday.