Last year, the ISU men’s basketball team finished the regular season with a nearly perfect home record at 15-1. Its only loss was an 88-67 thrashing by Oklahoma State on Feb. 7, 2004.

The Cyclones (8-5, 0-2) will have a chance for redemption on Saturday when they travel to Stillwater to face the No. 6 Cowboys.

Oklahoma State (12-1, 2-0) is coming off a 78-68 win over Missouri. The Tigers handed Iowa State its first conference loss last Saturday.

Senior Joey Graham scored a season-high 27 points against Missouri while senior guard John Lucas added 18.

The Cowboys’ only loss is to Gonzaga, 78-75. Oklahoma State has won eight of its last 10 meetings against Iowa State.

Graham, a 6-7 forward, was named last season’s Big 12 Newcomer of the Year and is averaging 19.1 points and seven rebounds per game, which leads the team. He has scored 72 points in the Cowboys’ last three games.

Lucas is second on the team in scoring with 18.8 points per game. He was named the Big 12 Player of the Week on Dec. 6.

In addition, Graham and Lucas claim the top two scoring positions in the Big 12.

The Cyclones will also have to deal with senior forward Ivan McFarlin. Both McFarlin and Lucas scored 21 points in last year’s regular-season victory over the Cyclones.

Iowa State has dropped its first two conference games, including its most recent loss, a 71-66 defeat at home to No. 2 Kansas on Wednesday. The loss put Iowa State’s overall record to 8-5.

“Our reward for playing Kansas is to go to Oklahoma State,” coach Wayne Morgan said after Wednesday’s game.

Sophomores Curtis Stinson and Will Blalock led the Cyclones with 18 and 17 points, respectively. Senior Damion Staple finished with nine points before fouling out. Staple will be seeing more time in the post because sophomore center Reggie George has been dismissed from the team, and sophomore forward Robert Faulkner is unable to dress, pending an academic appeal.

“I thought Damion Staple was terrific [Wednesday night],” Morgan said. “It was unfortunate he got in foul trouble.”

In both of its conference losses, Iowa State came back from a halftime deficit only to fall in the final minutes.

“Every game since Xavier, we’ve been down at halftime, we go right into the first five minutes of the second half and let them go on a 10 [or] 12-0 run and then we have to play catch up from there,” Blalock said. “We have to correct that. We have to start executing at the end of the game.”

Morgan said his team is close to being a very good one.

“I don’t think we’re far away. If we can get a little bit better and concentrate a little bit more we will get to the point where we will start to win game after game,” Morgan said.

“At the same time, we don’t have a big margin of error.”