DALLAS — Jake Sullivan hobbled onto the American Airlines Arena court Wednesday morning, Marcus Jefferson is with his ill mother and has not practiced since Saturday and Iowa State has lost 17 straight Big 12 games away from Hilton Coliseum.

Not many things to gain confidence from, but Sullivan said the team is ready for Thursday’s noon match-up with Texas A&M.

“Part of it’s from being young, and part of it’s just learning to win on the road,” Sullivan said about the Cyclones’ road woes. “But we’re not looking at this as a game on the road. We’re looking at this as a neutral floor.”

The Cyclones (15-12, 5-11 Big 12) have held court at home as of late, blowing out Colorado and Missouri in their last two games at Hilton. They dropped a 74-63 decision to Kansas State in Manhattan, Kan., on Saturday.

“We’ve played a very good quality of basketball at home. Our last two games were against NCAA tournament teams in Colorado and Missouri. And then we get on this type of floor, which is different, and our game changes, like at Nebraska and Kansas State,” head coach Larry Eustachy said, looking down at the American Airlines Center hardwood. “If you’re playing a local high school team tomorrow, you’d feel real good about coming on this court, but we’re not. Everybody here is a good team. We can’t seem to take our game that we get in practice onto a foreign court, and that’s our goal.”

Jefferson is expected to be with the team Thursday. His mother is battling tumors on her lungs and Jefferson missed last week’s game against Missouri and a match-up with Kansas State on Feb. 22 to be by her side.

“His mom has really taken a turn for the worse,” Eustachy said. “But he’s going to make it for this game and play it day-by-day.”

Sullivan said Jefferson’s return will be critical to the team’s success.

“You need a bench to be able to win in these types of games,” Sullivan said. “Especially since we’ll probably be in foul trouble the way they play. It will be a foul-prone game. We need him and he’s a big contribution off the bench.”

Eustachy said his team has seen a lot of bumps in the road this season and has come through it for the most part.

Besides the uncertain future of Jefferson, Chris Alexander left the team last month to care for his child and assistant coach Randy Brown resigned earlier this month due to charges of possession and receipt of pictures of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Another bump came Monday when Sullivan stepped on Dave Braet’s foot in practice and sprained his left ankle.

“He’s hobbling,” Eustachy said. “He’s probably about 25 to 50 percent at best. We’re beat up a little bit, but I think that’s OK. Everybody is at this time of the year.”

Injuries are nothing new for Sullivan this season. Against Texas, he dislocated a finger and at home against Colorado he hurt his shoulder. When the team played at Texas A&M, he sprained his right ankle and sat out the last four minutes of the game. Team trainer Vic Miller said the variety of Sullivan’s injuries have him the most hampered he’s ever been in his three years at Iowa State.

“Now he’s got some new [injuries] and some old,” Miller said.

Sullivan, a junior who leads the team and is fifth in the league at 17.9 points per game, practiced Tuesday and Wednesday morning. He said he’ll be ready to go by game time.

“I landed on his foot and sprained it pretty bad, but this is what you play the whole year for,” Sullivan said.

He said he has limited mobility because of the gimpy ankles.

“I’m not very explosive, but I wasn’t to start with,” Sullivan said with a laugh.

Sullivan said he’ll focus on his defensive game against Texas A&M as he will match up with 6-foot-5 Bernard King, a second-team All-Big 12 pick this season who leads the team with 16.9 points per game.

“Contain King. That’s a huge key defensively,” Sullivan said. “And we need to out-rebound these guys. If we can do those things, we should win the game.”

Texas A&M (14-13, 6-10) defeated Iowa State in College Station on Feb. 19 66-54 after trailing early. King scored 15 second-half points to lead all scorers with 17.

“We broke down in a lot of areas over at A&M,” Eustachy said. “We couldn’t control their dribble penetration and when that happened they had to rotate over, so when the ball was shot we didn’t get the rebound.

“We have to do all facets better. We can’t turn the ball over. We really need to control the tempo of the game. They wanted to go really fast and we need to slow the game down. I think the less possessions the game has, the better chance we have to win.”

King said it’s not going to be as easy to beat Iowa State this time, but he’s still confident about his team’s chances.

“Iowa State is playing much better than they were then,” King said. “But if we come out and play our game, we should be able to beat them again.”

The Aggies are 0-6 in Big 12 tournament games, and after winning it all in 2000, the Cyclones had early exits each of the last two years.

“I just want to get out of the first round. I’d be happy with that this year,” Sullivan said. “I haven’t won a game yet in the Big 12 tournament.”