Big 12 play will be revelation for newcomers

AMES, Iowa (AP) _ The newcomers on Iowa State's basketball team are in for a revelation. It's time to start Big 12 play. <br><br>No. 23 Iowa State begins defense of its conference title against

Friday, January 5th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

AMES, Iowa (AP) _ The newcomers on Iowa State's basketball team are in for a revelation. It's time to start Big 12 play.

No. 23 Iowa State begins defense of its conference title against No. 15 Oklahoma at Hilton Coliseum on Saturday. The intensity, the stakes, the talent on the opposing team, everything about the game gets racheted up several notches.

``We just try to tell the younger guys how tough it is,'' senior guard Kantrail Horton said. ``Starting Saturday, they'll be seeing things they haven't seen before.''

Four newcomers are among Iowa State's top eight players: freshmen Jake Sullivan, Shane Power and Zach Fortune and junior-college transfer Tyray Pearson.

Sullivan, a 6-foot-1 guard, will start in his first Big 12 game. Not even Marcus Fizer did that.

``I'm just going to work hard,'' Sullivan said. ``I'm not going to change anything I'm doing. They have great players, we have great players and the tougher team's going to win.''

Iowa State (12-1) is off to the best start in school history and is coming off a 95-44 rout of Illinois-Chicago, a game coach Larry Eustachy called the best of the season.

The Cyclones shot 51.6 percent, held Illinois-Chicago to 24.3 percent shooting and outrebounded the Flames 60-32.

``I think we're very anxious to start league play,'' Eustachy said. ``But that's not good enough. We're going to have to outbox this team. This is going to be a boxing match. It's going to be a 15-rounder.''

Iowa State's Big 12 regular-season and tournament championship banners will be unfurled before the game, which should get the crowd going. The Cyclones earned the tournament championship by beating Oklahoma 70-58 in the finals.

``I think that will have them fired up,'' Horton said. ``We got the last blow out of that fight the last time. They'll be pumped up and ready to go.''

Oklahoma (11-1) has lost only to No. 22 Mississippi, a team Iowa State beat 73-68 to win the Yahoo! Sports Invitational in Hawaii. The Sooners have won two overtime games, including a 79-78 win over SMU in their last game on Dec. 30.

Junior-college transfer Aaron McGhee, a 6-8 forward, leads Oklahoma with a 15.3 scoring average and has had games of 32, 28, 27 and 26 points.

Four of Oklahoma's top five scorers are shooting 50 percent or better from the field. One of them, Kelley Newton, is shooting 55 percent from 3-point range.

``They execute better than any team we've played,'' Eustachy said. ``They'll be the hardest team to guard to date. They really put a premium on executing their offense.''

Iowa State, which lost only two league games last season, will be tested early in the conference race. The Cyclones play at Oklahoma State on Monday night, then travel to Missouri the following weekend. Then they're home against Colorado and Eustachy said that won't be easy, either.

``I think it's great,'' he said. ``This is why these guys signed up to play at Iowa State. This is why I signed up to be the coach here. We signed up to take on the best and why not take them on early to see where we're at.''