A reheated cheeseburger from Break Time after 11 p.m., a four-hour trek through Northeast Missouri and the extra-happy guy that ran around with a tiny basketball hoop on his head were all memories from my first trip to Columbia, Mo. — and they don’t need to stick around much longer.

In Larry Eustachy’s eyes, Iowa State’s performance at the Hearnes Center is something he hopes to soon forget as well.

Traveling calls, flailing attempts at loose balls and mental mistakes tarnished an otherwise gutsy ISU effort. The Cyclones dropped their fourth-straight game and it was, admittedly, their own fault.

Adam Haluska and Jake Sullivan both said their team should have won, but it just plain didn’t. They pointed to turnovers, while Eustachy alluded to a lack of toughness within the team.

And the Missouri loss sets up a game this weekend that will make or break Iowa State’s season — mark my word.

Nebraska comes into Hilton Coliseum sans its third-leading scorer and team captain Jake Muhlheisen, who broke his hip against Kansas.

The Huskers were 9-7 overall going into Wednesday night’s match-up with Kansas State, are flirting with .500 and have beaten Colorado for their lone conference win.

With the Cyclones’ demeanor taking a hit after coming so close against Missouri, this game means everything for their season. They’ve been playing well enough to beat a team like Nebraska, and they need to bury someone again.

If they can accomplish that, it may be a pleasant end to the conference season that started out as a nightmare.

But if Iowa State lays an egg against the Big Red and loses by double digits — at home no less — then the ISU faithful could have that dreaded three-letter word filling their thoughts.

N-I-T.

Or worse.

Just two seasons separated from back-to-back conference championships, the Cyclones are becoming considered bottom-feeders in the ultra-tough Big 12 by some. Heads were hanging in Columbia for the first time since Boston College ended Iowa State’s hopes of going undefeated.

Optimism was abundant after losing to No. 5 Oklahoma. Eustachy, Haluska and Sullivan were all confident about the immediate future of the program.

It seemed as if the Cyclones were comfortable with losing, as long as improvement was embedded within the setback. They realized it was Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma. They realized that the experience factor wasn’t in their favor. And they knew the schedule was going to turn in their favor eventually.

The Missouri game was a step backwards and it hurt more because it could have catapulted Iowa State into a winning streak.

After starting 10-1, the National Invitational Tournament seemed like a lock, and the Big Dance was a reality, despite the fact that those 10 wins included east-side powerhouse Coe and the second-best team inside Arkansas — Arkansas Pine-Bluff.

Sullivan said after the Cyclones lost to Oklahoma that the team’s goal was to win nine of its next 13 games and he called it “very reasonable.”

Now it’s nine of the next 12, and that means a winning streak must be on the horizon if Iowa State expects to play into mid-March.

And the horizon includes a trip to Oklahoma State, which has the nation’s longest home-court winning streak, after the Nebraska game.

Sullivan and the rest of the Cyclones should take a lesson from the football team and not let a tumultuous schedule ruin the season.

It’s still salvageable, but it starts Saturday afternoon.

Jeff Raasch is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Odebolt. He is the assignment sports editor and senior sports writer for the Daily.