Iowa State men’s basketball will get another reminder of how much COVID-19 has impacted the 2020-21 season Tuesday with the start of a back-to-back series against the Kansas Jayhawks (13-7, 7-5 Big 12).

The unusual schedule is in effect because the original date for this game on Jan. 16 was postponed when Iowa State was in a program COVID-19 pause.

Enter Thursday’s makeshift game.

To add to the strange schedule circumstances, Kansas sits 7-5 in Big 12 play and remains unranked, making it the first time since February 2009 the Jayhawks have been in this position. For more firsts, Iowa State and Kansas have never played one another in consecutive games, making Thursday’s matchup even more historic.

The Jayhawks have beaten the Cyclones in four straight games in Allen Fieldhouse, with the Cyclones’ last win coming Feb. 4, 2017. Kansas beat Iowa State by 26 at Hilton Coliseum and by 20 in Lawrence, Kansas, last season.

The Cyclones are coming off a close 79-76 loss to TCU on Tuesday that dropped them to 2-12 overall and 0-9 in Big 12 play.

Thursday’s game will be a battle of two of the Big 12’s best guards in Iowa State guard Rasir Bolton and Kansas guard Ochai Agbaji.

Bolton leads the Cyclones in scoring by nearly a five-point margin and ranks fifth in the Big 12 in scoring with his 16.6 points per game. Over his last four games, Bolton is averaging 20 points per game on 41.5 percent shooting.

Agbaji might not be scoring as much as Bolton as of late, but the Jayhawks junior guard leads Kansas with his 13.9 points per game respectively. In the 2019-20 season, Agbaji scored 30 combined points in the two meetings between Iowa State and Kansas.

The game will be at 6 p.m. in Lawrence, Kansas, at Allen Fieldhouse and will be televised on ESPN.