Jake Sullivan has seen the play of Nick Collison, Kirk Hinrich and T.J. Ford already this season. As far as he’s concerned, none of them compare to his competition on Saturday — Hollis Price.

“In my opinion, he’s the best player in the conference, the smartest player in the conference,” Sullivan said.

ISU head coach Larry Eustachy took it a step further. “He’s a professional,” Eustachy said. “He’ll be a first-round NBA pick.”

It’s not often that the best player in the conference and a future professional misses 12 of his 14 shots and scores only six points in a game, but that’s exactly what happened to Price on Monday as the No. 5 Sooners were upset by Oklahoma State, 48-46.

Advantage Iowa State? Not necessarily.

“He’s coming off a bad game, so he’s just going to be that much more dangerous,” Sullivan said.

“He’s a tough, hard-nosed player,” Tim Barnes said. “He’s got the stop-and-go working and some hesitation moves, so it’s going to be a good matchup.”

Price lit it up against Iowa State last season, scoring 24 points in an 89-74 Oklahoma win. The senior is averaging 17.5 points per game this season and remains the Sooners’ biggest offensive threat.

Sullivan and Barnes will handle the majority of the defense against Price on Saturday. Freshman Adam Haluska will try to shut down Price’s backcourt teammate Ebi Ere, who also averages 17.5 points per game.

Iowa State lost by a combined 49 points in its first two league games against Kansas and Texas. In both, frigid shooting led to big first-half deficits. The Jayhawks jumped out to a 22-2 lead, while the Longhorns led 23-7 after nine minutes in Saturday’s contest.

But unlike the Kansas game, Iowa State rallied in the second half against Texas behind Sullivan. The long-range specialist scored 17 points in the second half to help bring the Cyclones back to within four, but Texas pulled away again to put the game away. Haluska said the way he and his teammates responded to the 13-point halftime hole was an encouraging sign.

Sullivan said one way the Cyclones were able to open up their offense against Texas was by getting the ball inside to the post players. He hopes to see production from both the inside and the perimeter against Oklahoma so the Cyclones don’t become one-dimensional.

The Cyclones must also have more toughness from the outset to avoid another large deficit early in the game on Saturday, Barnes said.

“The only way to overcome it is to just play tougher,” Barnes said. “As you can see, in the middle of our first Big 12 games, we played Kansas and Texas neck to neck. We’ve just got to put the full 40 minutes together.”