MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – One team trying to start a streak is facing another team trying to end one on Wednesday night when 13^th-ranked West Virginia and Iowa State meet at the WVU Coliseum.
 
The Mountaineers are trying to build on their 11-game Coliseum winning streak while the Cyclones are attempting to snap their nine-game road losing streak, which dates back to last season.
 
Iowa State is currently 9-12 overall with both of its Big 12 wins this season coming in Ames over Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. The seven-point victory against the Cowboys on Jan. 21 was Iowa State's last triumph.
 
Since then, the Cyclones' last three losses have been at now-No. 11 Auburn, at home to top-ranked Baylor and at Texas.
 
Sophomore Tyrese Haliburton is one of the better players in the country you probably don't know. The 6-foot-5 guard boasts one of the best all-around stat lines of any player in the country, averaging 15.7 points, 6.8 assists, six rebounds per game and two steals per game.
 
He's had 17 double-digit scoring games this season and shows 27 in 55 career games for Iowa State. The Oshkosh, Wisconsin, resident really blew up this summer when he helped Team USA to a gold medal at the FIBA U19 World Cup, and his name is beginning to show up on everyone's NBA Draft boards.
 
"He's a 6-foot-5 guy with ball skills," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "He passes it really well and can obviously make shots."
 
Haliburton is in that size range of players like Kansas State's Xavier Sneed and Texas Tech's Jahm'ius Ramsey who have given WVU some issues lately.
 
Sneed had his usual 16 points and three steals in K-State's victory over the Mountaineers in Manhattan back on Jan. 18, while Ramsey got 21 on 7-of-11 shooting in Texas Tech's eight-point win in Lubbock on Jan. 29.
 
The responsibility of slowing down Haliburton will fall to Jermaine Haley and others on Wednesday night.
 
"He's a hard matchup," Huggins admitted.
 
The veteran coach also likes what 6-foot-10, 223-pound sophomore forward George Conditt IV brings to the table for the Cyclones. He gives them some scoring (8.0 ppg.), some rebounding (4.0 rpg.) and a shot blocking presence with eight career games of at least four blocks or more. 
 
Conditt shows 40 blocks in 21 games so far this season.

Rasir Bolton, a Penn State transfer, has scored in double figures in 15 of 21 games so far this year and is averaging 15.3 points per game, sixth best in the Big 12.
 
The Cyclones are second to Kansas in the Big 12 in scoring, averaging 75 points per game, but Huggins isn't sure if they plan to speed things up and make it an up-and-down game on Wednesday night.
 
"If you watch them they haven't really played that way," he said. "They're trying to guard, and their ball movement is pretty good. When they get down, then Haliburton is going to have the ball, and he's going to make plays, but it doesn't start out that way."
 
Defensively, Iowa State is giving up a league-worst 72 points per contest.
 
"They're going to play multiple defenses. They are going to press a little bit. They're going to play some zone," Huggins said. "Conditt is a really good shot blocker, we've got to execute and we've got to stop missing one-footers. We've missed more layups and 1-footers than any team I can remember in a while."
 
West Virginia (17-4, 5-3) is coming off a hard-fought, 66-57 victory over Kansas State at the Coliseum on last Saturday afternoon. Sophomore forward Derek Culver scored a game-high 19 points and grabbed 14 rebounds for the victorious Mountaineers.
 
It was the 26^th double-double in 47 career games for Culver.
 
He's averaging a team-best 12 points per game in Big 12 play and 11.0 points per game overall, which is right behind freshman forward Oscar Tshiebwe's 11.2 average. 
 
Tshiebwe has scored just 12 points in his last two games after producing 14 points and eight rebounds in the Big 12/SEC Challenge against Missouri and tallying 13 points and 11 rebounds in a blowout home win over Texas.
 
Freshman guard Miles McBride is the other Mountaineer player averaging double figures at 10.2 points per contest.
 
The Mountaineers had a 41.7 percent shooting performance against Kansas State, and they are shooting just 43.5 percent in Big 12 games this season. However, WVU's shooting figure is considerably better at the Coliseum where it is shooting 48.6 percent in four league games so far.
 
Wednesday's game will tip off at 7 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Robert Ford and Tim Welsh). 
 
Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield IMG College radio coverage will begin at 6 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday.