A week after getting “humbled” at the hands of TCU, Iowa State will encounter one of its most important games of the season.

Come the end of the regular season, it could wind up being one of the most important regular-season games in the Big 12 era for the Cyclones. 

How’s that for excitement? 

The No. 18 Kansas State Wildcats will host the No. 23 Cyclones 3 p.m. Saturday at Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan, Kansas. To get back into the Big 12 title chase, the Cyclones will have to take down a Wildcats team that is on a roll. 

Winners of nine of the last 10 and nine straight Big 12 games following an 0-2 start, Kansas State is the conference’s surprise leader with just seven games left to play, holding a two-game lead in the loss column over Kansas, Baylor, Texas Tech and Iowa State. 

The first time these two teams met, it was a defensive slugfest that came down to the wire, with the Cyclones giving up a 6-0 run over the final two minutes to give the Wildcats a 58-57 win on a Barry Brown Jr. game-winner. 

This time around, the Cyclones know what to expect. 

“They’re a really tough team,” said redshirt senior guard Nick Weiler-Babb. “They’ve got some really experienced seniors, and those are the guys who are taking the lead.”

In that game, the Wildcats got little production from Dean Wade, who was in his first game back from injury. How Iowa State matches up against the senior forward will be key, as Wade is averaging 13.9 points and shooting 40.5 percent from the three-point range.

One of the more interesting aspects of Saturday’s matchup is how both teams play on offense. While the Cyclones are the highest scoring team in the conference, Kansas State is dead last. The league leaders have the worst scoring offense in the Big 12, averaging only 65.9 points per contest. That’s more than three points fewer than Oklahoma State, the ninth-best offense at 69 points per game.

The Wildcats counter their offensive limitations by sporting the second-best scoring defense in the Big 12 at 59.5 points per game. However, the lack of scoring punch from anyone beyond the team’s top three – Brown, Wade and Kamau Stokes – lowers the Wildcats’ margin of error.

It’s no surprise that six of Kansas State’s nine conference wins have come by 10 points or fewer. 

Coach Steve Prohm was impressed with how the Wildcats have handled adversity, and said they present a tough matchup even without injured guard Cartier Diarra.

“Man they’ve been through so much this year already,” Prohm said. “They’ve got experienced toughness, and they know how to win. That’s why they were 0-2 and down 21 [to West Virginia], and that’s why they’re at [9-2] now.”

Having finished off close games recently against Texas and Oklahoma, Iowa State has shown it can grind out victories when it doesn’t have its A-game. Against Kansas State, the Cyclones will likely need to do just that. 

The week off has given the Cyclones time to work on the defensive troubles that have bothered them over the past four conference games. 

Freshman guard Talen Horton-Tucker said it comes down to mentality for Iowa State’s mix of youth and veterans, particularly on the defensive end. 

“It’s pretty [tough] mentally for us,” Horton-Tucker said. “But we’re just trying to put our minds to it and just hunker down and do it.”

At 7-4, Iowa State is heading toward its Big 12 title reckoning Saturday. Will the Cyclones rise up and keep themselves in it, or fall three games back?