The 2017-18 college basketball season is only two weeks in, but for Iowa State, it’s felt much longer than that.

The season started with back-to-back double-digit defeats, one at Missouri and the other at home against Milwaukee.

The Cyclones followed that up with a 3-0 record and a championship at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off in South Carolina, led by veteran guards Nick Weiler-Babb and Donovan Jackson.

Sprinkle in the debuts of six new Cyclones over the course of three different games and it’s easy to see why that wild start has made the short season feel longer than in reality.

“It’s going by really fast,” Weiler-Babb said. “Basketball season came fast and it’s already five games into the season so it’s been going super fast.”

The Cyclones (3-2, 0-0 Big 12) had nearly a week between the championship game against Boise State last Sunday and the next game, against Western Illinois (4-0, 0-0 Summit) at Hilton Coliseum Saturday night, so maybe that fast pace is finally slowing down.

While Western Illinois’ 4-0 record looks good on the surface, the Leathernecks have played just two Division I opponents and have won those two games by a combined four points.

Only one senior has played for Western Illinois this season in its two Division I games, so experience isn’t Western Illinois’ strength. But that lone senior could be a problem.

Dalan Ancrum started just 13 games for the Leathernecks as a junior a year ago but is averaging a team-high 21 points per game on 57 percent shooting this year.

He’ll be the toughest task for Steve Prohm’s squad, which has slowly gotten better on the defensive end throughout this season.

“It’s November,” Prohm said about his team’s progress. “We just want to get better each day. I’m a big 1-0 guy, I’m a big ‘win the day’ guy, and that needs to be our thought process.”

That thought process has been important for Iowa State as three players — senior forward Hans Brase along with freshmen Cameron Lard and Terrence Lewis — made their Cyclone debuts after the exhibition game. Lard and Brase didn’t make their debuts until game three of the regular season.

“I feel like I did pretty well,” Lard said of his first three games. “I could’ve done better.”

Lard debuted with a 12-point, 11-rebound performance against Appalachian State. He also provides protection at the rim, as shown by his team-high seven blocks in just three games.

Lard hasn’t started a game in a Cyclone uniform yet, so his contributions off the bench have been a pleasant change of pace for the team. He’s a big piece — literally — of Iowa State’s puzzle, especially on defense.

“We’ve got to get better defensively,” Prohm said. “I mean, you look statistically, you look at KenPom, you look at the stats, that’s where we’ve really got to grow. And when we’re good defensively, it really feeds good offense.”

If Iowa State can lock down Western Illinois’ shooters — the Leathernecks are shooting 38.5 percent from behind the 3-point line this season — that could be a step in the right direction.

“We’ve got a little bit more confidence to us,” Weiler-Babb said. “We kind of showed what we can do over the past week and weekend. It’s still the same mentality going in, that we have to treat every game [the same].”