In the past several seasons, scheduling out-of-conference opponents has almost become an art form to many NCAA basketball coaches.

It’s important for teams to get decent competition in preparation for their often brutal conference seasons, and ISU head coach Wayne Morgan said he knows that there is no tougher conference in the country than the Big 12.

Iowa State didn’t have a challenging out-of-conference schedule under former coach Larry Eustachy, and Morgan said that was one thing he wanted to change immediately.

The Cyclones host Xavier and travel to Virginia and San Diego State this winter.

“When I got the job, we weren’t playing San Diego State, Virginia or Xavier, so this indicates we went out and aggressively tried to have an impact on the schedule,” Morgan said during Tuesday’s Big 12 teleconference.

Although Morgan wanted to increase the Cyclones’ level of out-of-conference competition, he said he also knew not to play an abundance of extremely difficult opponents that could hurt Iowa State’s momentum heading into Big 12 play.

“It’s a very difficult balance, but you’ve got to try to find it,” Morgan said. “We wanted to find three opponents that would be competitive for us, but we also knew we would still have to play the schools in Iowa. We just got out of a dogfight with Northern Iowa, and we barely got out of that alive.”

The heart of the Cyclones’ nonconference schedule won’t begin until Xavier comes to Ames on Dec. 23. Right now, Morgan said he is taking the season one game at time.

Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne comes to town Friday. Although the Mastodons are no Xavier, Morgan said his team still needs to be ready for Friday’s game.

“We expect them to come in here and compete and play hard and do everything they can to win the game,” Morgan said. “I know they have a 6-7 kid who’s a very good player, and they also have another guard who is a very good player that we’re going to really have to pay attention to.”

Although it is still early in the season, one thing that Morgan’s fast-paced style of play has brought back to Ames is the Hilton Magic that seemed to fade in the past couple of years. Morgan hopes this will continue to build and progress as the season goes on.

“I really hope that as the fans see the talent level of our kids, their interest will grow and they will tell their friends to go to the games,” Morgan said. “I think the way we play has precision, but at the same time it’s meant to entertain. I’m hoping that once that word spreads, we will completely fill Hilton Coliseum every game.”

Missouri head coach Quin Snyder knows as well as anybody how tough it can be to play in Ames.

“It’s been a really tough place for us to play and really a tough place for everybody to play,” Snyder said.

Snyder’s Tigers open their Big 12 schedule in Ames on Jan. 7 and Snyder said this will be a very different ISU team than he’s faced in years passed.

“Iowa State’s got a good club and it sounds like they’re getting up and down the floor. I know Wayne and he’s going to light a fire under them and encourage them to be aggressive on the offensive end,” Snyder said. “It’s going to be a steep challenge for us, particularly having your first game on the road.”

Both Mercer and Northern Iowa have outrebounded Iowa State, something Morgan said isn’t acceptable.

“Obviously, the first two games we got out-rebounded so we need to try and at least bring that back to even,” Morgan said.

After two games, Morgan said he’s been impressed with his team’s unselfishness, both offensively and defensively.

“Every kid on the team is unselfish. Selflessness is contagious and our guys will give up the ball without a second thought,” Morgan said. “Defensively, the kids have gotten the idea of helping each other. They’re scrambling around and trying to help, so that’s good.”