The Texas Longhorns, after losing three consecutive games in the midst of the toughest portion of their schedule this season, have a must-win game when they host Iowa State Tuesday night in the Erwin Center.
Iowa State, which already beat Texas 77-71 in Ames earlier this year, is the only unranked team the Longhorns will play the rest of the month, and Texas can ill-afford to drop a home game to them if they want to continue Rick Barnes' school record streak of 13 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.
The Longhorns, at 12-7 and sixth place in the Big 12, are on the outside looking in of the Tournament bubble, although they've had several close calls, including an 84-80 loss at Kansas State and a 69-66 home loss to Kansas on Saturday.
In their first game against the 14-5 Cyclones, they were unable to overcome a balanced Iowa State scoring attack, which featured four different starters scoring in double digits.
Under second-year head coach Fred Hoiberg, Iowa State has become a second chance program for wayward players, featuring transfers from Minnesota (PF Royce White) and Michigan State (G Chris Allen).
In the first match-up between the two schools, Texas received only 17 total points from freshmen Myck Kabongo, Julien Lewis, Jonathan Holmes and Jaylen Bond.
That will have to change for them to pull out a desperately needed win against the Cyclones, especially with games against No. 7 Baylor and No. 2 Missouri next.
For more news and notes on Texas basketball, head over to Burnt Orange Nation while Wide Right And Natty Lite has all the pre-game coverage from Ames.