The last time the ISU men’s basketball team faced off with Colorado, neither had won a Big 12 Conference game and Iowa State hadn’t lost to an unranked opponent at home.

That changed in Colorado’s 54-52 overtime victory on Jan. 22, leaving with its first win in Ames since Feb. 19, 1991.

It was that loss which appeared to kick the Cyclones into gear, as they have won eight of their last 11 games since the loss to Colorado and put themselves onto the NCAA tournament bubble.

Colorado (13-14, 4-11 Big 12) has only won three games since the meeting.

Senior center Jared Homan said it would be nice to get payback when Iowa State (16-10, 8-7) travels to Boulder on Saturday for its regular-season finale.

“I think when we played them at home, it was kind of the turning point of the season,” Homan said. “It was like, ‘This isn’t how we’re going to play. We need to change what we’re doing’ and we were able to do that.”

Coach Wayne Morgan said the game will be meaningful for the team.

“It’s nice to be in a position where every game you’re playing now does mean something,” Morgan said.

“This is why they come to college … to be in a position like this.”

Rebounding is key to the game on Saturday. In the first meeting, the Buffaloes pulled down 54 rebounds to the Cyclones’ 35.

“It’s no question we lost on the backboards,” Morgan said after the loss. “That cost us the game. In the second half, it seemed that we would play decent defense, get them to miss, but they would keep rebounding the ball until they scored.”

Colorado is averaging 35.8 rebounds per game.

“They’re a good rebounding team. They present a lot of problems for us,” Morgan said. “They’re tall, they’re athletic, they’re long and they jump. We’re small.”

In the first game, Curtis Stinson led Iowa State with 15 points and Will Blalock added 14.

Colorado suffered a 70-55 loss at Nebraska on Wednesday. Andy Osborn led the Buffaloes with 12 points.

Freshman Richard Roby leads Colorado in scoring with 16 points per game.

“I think we obviously played a lot better [Wednesday] than we did the last two games,” Morgan said. “I hope we’re in position where we can play at that level when we go out to Colorado.”

In its 67-49 win over Missouri on Wednesday, Iowa State forced 22 Tiger turnovers and had 14 steals.

“We have to play our defense,” Stinson said. “When we play defense and we get steals, we’re running. There’s nobody that can really stay with us.”

With the possibility of going into the Big 12 tournament next Thursday with a winning conference record and quality wins over ranked opponents, Iowa State is making it into some bracket projections. But the team knows it still has some work to do.

“We have to go out to Colorado, win that game and do some damage in the Big 12 [tournament],” Homan said.