Before the start of the season, sophomore Stevie Johnson declared that he would step up and be the leader on a Cyclone squad with no returning starters and only a handful of players with game experience.

Coach Tim Floyd echoed Johnson’s words at his media day press conference, describing the 6’4″ forward as a “natural leader.”

A month later, Iowa State opened its exhibition season with a 15-point victory over Yugoslavia. Johnson played 20 minutes in the game and scored only two points. His highest statistic was three assists.

“I wanted to be the leader on this team and I came out and wanted to do too much instead of just play ball, relax, and do the things within the offense that I can do,” Johnson said Tuesday, after scoring a career-high 17 in an 85-82 victory over Texas.

Once again, Floyd found himself echoing Johnson’s words.

“I think Stevie was feeling like he had to do more than he was ready to do,” Floyd said Thursday. “You have to understand — here is a guy who had all of his minutes last season as an inside player. He had no game time to make the adjustment to a transition player.”

Time has since proven valuable to Johnson, who sparked the Cyclone offense with 11 points Saturday in Nebraska. Tuesday night, Johnson shot 7 for 9 from the field, pulling down a team-high eight rebounds and clocking more than 35 minutes on the hardwood.

“Stevie played his finest game [Tuesday],” Floyd said. “Texas’ defense allowed for him to be the go-to-guy. We gave him the ball a great deal because of the trap pressure and I thought he did a very nice job. “

Johnson attributed his shooting success to practice.

“I was working on my shot a lot, and it was falling and I felt good,” Johnson said. “In the first half at Nebraska, I got in a little rhythm and knew that I could get in a rhythm tonight.”

Rhythm has long been a key in Johnson’s game. At Perry Central High School in Beaumont, Miss., where Johnson was the second-leading scorer in state history with 3,435 points, he learned to develop a fast-paced game.

“We got up and down a lot and I got a lot of transition points,” Johnson said. “For me, it’s just getting comfortable in the offense. I’m getting more comfortable [at ISU] and I’m getting the ball in places where I can score.”

According to Floyd, that place is anywhere 10 feet from the basket. “That is definitely his greatest strength,” Floyd said.

Outside shooting has been a problem for the Cyclones all season as forward Marcus Fizer and centers Paul Shirley and Klay Edwards have been leading the team in scoring.

“Coach has been getting on his perimeter players — he wanted us to step up a little bit,” Johnson said. “I just think we have to be more consistent. If we could hit some outside shots it would help us out a lot.”

Now that Johnson’s offense is coming on, he hopes to step back into the leadership position he accepted before the season opened.

“Coach is looking for a leader because we don’t have a vocal leader,” Johnson said. “I think Lee [Love] stepped up a lot with his vocals and he gets other people talkin’ and we just feed off each other.”

Johnson said he looks at the quieter players on the team and sees an image of himself last season.

“Sometimes they’ll be more vocal — but sometimes they’ll get quiet and you don’t think that they are in the game, but they are really in it. So it’s kind of hard,” he said.

“Usually I talk to them a lot, because they are going through the same thing I went through last year. I don’t want them to have to go through the same hard road. I try to make it a little easier for them.”