The ISU men’s basketball team is opening its season against a top-ranked team in the country.

Mountain State, which is ranked No. 1 in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, comes into Hilton Coliseum with a perfect 8-0 record and a little-known reputation.

“I’ve never heard of them until this year,” said junior guard Will Blalock. “We know they’re good though and we have to be ready.”

No. 25 Iowa State will try to slow the buzzsaw pace that Mountain State – located in Beckey, W.V. – has set this season. The Cougars have lit up the scoreboard averaging more than 99 points a game, a blistering pace that will test a Cyclone team still trying to get healthy.

“I’ve got no choice but to be ready for it,” Blalock said. “We like to put points on the board and score and get up and down the floor, but we know how tough it will be and have to get ready for it now.”

The Cyclones have shown they prefer to run the floor and put points on the board, both last season and in the first two exhibition games this season, but they said they can’t let the scoring get out of control either.

“We want to slow them down and then we’ll run with it,” said junior guard Curtis Stinson. “We want to dictate the scoring. We’ve got to play defense, too.”

Stinson is one of the Cyclones who have been banged up as the season approaches finally getting underway, battling a bulging disk in his back. Stinson, though, said the injury will not be used as an excuse.

“I feel fine,” he said. “I’m not going to use [my back] as an excuse. If it was an excuse I wouldn’t go out there. I just had a couple of bad games.”

Stinson managed just 25 points in the two exhibition games after averaging 17 per game last season.

The biggest concern for the Cyclones may be the health of freshman center Shawn Taggart, who battled a mysterious sickness during the exhibition season. Taggart lost 15 pounds while battling a stomach virus, but has since gained 10 back.

“When I first got sick, I didn’t eat anything for about four days straight,” Taggart said. “I’ve never been that sick in my life, I don’t know what that was.”

The inside play of Taggart and other big men like Jiri Hubalek could be a key to controlling the tempo against Mountain State, said ISU coach Wayne Morgan, who said he is glad to see Taggart getting healthy again.

“Taggart’s starting to get his strength back,” Morgan said. “He’ll play [on Sunday]. I’m not sure how much he’ll play, but he’ll play.”

Even with Taggart healthy, Morgan says the Cyclone offense will still have a different look, especially after seeing the inside players on this season’s team compared to one of last year’s big men, Damion Staple.

“[The inside play] will be different than we’re used to,” Morgan said. “Staple is twice as big as these guys, and then I can think back and Homan was twice as big as Staple was, so it will be different.”

Blalock expressed some concern about the pressures put on Taggart by the fans, but he feels that, with time, Taggart will become a strength for the Cyclones.

“It’s hard to teach these guys how hard it’s going to be. When you have guys 6-foot-8, 6-foot-9, I’m just 6-feet. It’s hard to show them how tough it will be when you don’t have a big man returning.”