It appears that Iowa State has completely lost its home court advantage.

The ISU men’s basketball team fell to Kansas 95-85 at Hilton Coliseum Saturday afternoon, marking their fifth loss at home during the regular season. ISU coach Wayne Morgan lost just four home games in his first two years as the Cyclones coach, making the sudden cold streak all the more perplexing.

“I can’t even explain how frustrating it is,” said ISU forward Rahshon Clark. “We’re the home team. We’re supposed to be winning at home. This is our domain and we’re supposed to protect it, and we haven’t been doing that.”

The Cyclones home woes – and road success after a 24-point win Wednesday at Missouri – inspired guard Will Blalock to coin a new phrase, spinning Hilton Magic into “Hilton Tragic.”

“I think our crowd gives us an advantage,” Morgan said. “We had a great crowd today out there to support us, but we didn’t play nearly as well as we needed to as far as execution goes.”

The Cyclones had two players reach 20 points in what was otherwise an off shooting night for Iowa State, with Curtis Stinson leading the team with 24 and Clark following with 20.

The Cyclones shot just 38 percent from the floor, and the ISU defense struggled mightily in slowing down the hot-shooting Jayhawks, who shot 58 percent from the floor.

“We have to look at the tape, break it down, see what mistakes we made and show that to the players,” Morgan said. “We have to get back quicker and not give up those easy shots. We did a better job of that later in the [first] half, but then we shot ourselves in the foot with some turnovers that led to more baskets.”

Iowa State especially struggled in slowing down Kansas guard Brandon Rush, who notched a double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Mario Chalmers was another thorn in Iowa State’s side, knocking down three treys on his way to a team-leading 21 points and six steals.

“They hit all their shots,” Stinson said. “It seemed like they couldn’t miss. They’re a good team and they’ve got confidence, that’s all.”

Clark attributed the defensive struggles to something else and hinted to a possible team meeting in the team’s upcoming week off to try to correct the problems.

“Everybody’s just got to make the right rotation and get out on the shooters,” he said. “We need to play with more intensity and our hands up on defense. Lately we haven’t been as aggressive on defense as we were last year.

“We have to get together as a team and talk because what’s going on now shouldn’t be happening.”

The Cyclones dropped behind quickly, down 11 points less than eight minutes into the game. They put together an 11-2 run in the final four minutes of the first half to pull within a point, before heading to the locker room down 38-35.

Iowa State kept it close for the first four minutes of the second half, but a 15-1 run by Kansas stretched the lead to 16, and the Cyclones never recovered.

“Kansas is a good team,” Clark said. “They came in here with the mind-set that they were going to do whatever they had to do to win. And that’s what they did, and I give that a lot of respect.

“We don’t take anyone for granted. We expect everyone we play to be good. This is the Big 12 conference and every team we play is going to be good.”

The loss drops Iowa State to 13-7 overall and 3-4 in the Big 12, and puts the Cyclones in a near must-win situation against Colorado before the Cyclones begin a stretch of three road contests in four games.

“Any loss is going to hurt you, home or away,” Stinson said. “It’s something we have to keep working on. I don’t know what it is, maybe guys are more relaxed and we come out tight thinking about the game too much at home. I don’t know.”

Iowa State’s game against Colorado tips off at 1 p.m. Saturday.