MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia returns to the road to face sixth-ranked Iowa State on Saturday afternoon at Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa.
 
The Mountaineers got 24 points from RaeQuan Battle and 15 points and 10 rebounds from Jesse Edwards to beat UCF 77-67 and snap their four-game conference losing streak on Tuesday night in Morgantown.
 
West Virginia (9-17, 4-9) opted to use a zone defense against the Knights and watched them miss 30 of their 38 field goal tries from behind the 3-point arc. The Mountaineers, who struggled to hold on to the basketball in recent losses to Texas, TCU and Baylor, did a much better job in that area against UCF.
 
"We are headed in the right direction there," West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said. "We had that three-game stretch when teams were turning us over and scoring off those live-ball turnovers, and we did a pretty good job of that against Central Florida."
 
The Mountaineers' ball handling will be put to the test on Saturday against an Iowa State team that preys on teams with its defense. The Cyclones (20-6, 9-4) are allowing just 62.9 points per game and are holding opponents to 40.5% shooting from the floor.
 
"They really guard, especially in the half court," Eilert explained. "They put some full court pressure out there, but it's really in the half court and their ball pressure is as good as anyone in the country. They turn people over, and that's something we've really harped on this week.
 
"They do a lot of different coverages with ball screens so you can't really predict that, but they have tremendous ball pressure, and they load up the box with help around them," he added.
 
On Monday night, Iowa State lost at Houston 73-65 but remain in contention for the regular season conference title, sitting just one game behind the Cougars in the standings with five games to go. After West Virginia, Iowa State has games left against Oklahoma, UCF, BYU and Kansas State – all winnable.
 
Houston has road games remaining at Baylor on Saturday, at Oklahoma on March 2 and at UCF on March 6, with home games left against Cincinnati on Feb. 27 and against Kansas on March 9 to wrap up the regular season.
 
Kansas, Baylor and Texas Tech also are still in the hunt two games behind Houston in the loss column, but each will need some help.
 
On the other end of the standings, West Virginia, Oklahoma State and UCF are deadlocked at the bottom with nine conference losses and WVU losing out in tiebreakers against both. 
 
The Cowboys defeated the Mountaineers 70-66 in Stillwater on Jan. 27 and have rallied with back-to-back wins against 19^th-ranked BYU and Cincinnati, while UCF has the edge right now because of its home win against Oklahoma.

West Virginia and Central Florida split games during the regular season.
 
The top four teams in the conference standings get double-byes in the Big 12 Tournament, while the bottom four teams will play Tuesday afternoon games at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City. The top four don't begin action in the conference tournament until Thursday.
 
And Iowa State is in great shape to be one of the four.
 
Keshon Gilbert, a 6-foot-4, 200-pound junior guard, leads a balanced Cyclone scoring attack by averaging 14.3 points per game. Tamin Lipsey, a 6-foot-1 sophomore, complements Gilbert in the backcourt with a 12.8 points-per-game average.
 
Milan Momcilovic, a 6-foot-8, 220-pound freshman, is Iowa State's top inside scorer averaging 11.9 points per game. The remainder of coach T.J. Otzelberger's starting lineup consists of 6-foot-10, 255-pound senior forward Robert Jones and 6-foot-7, 230-pound senior Tre King. Together, those two average 18.1 points and 9.6 rebounds per contest.
 
West Virginia holds a 14-9 advantage in the series and has won eight of the last nine games, including a 72-69 victory in Ames last year. The Mountaineers have won five times in Hilton Coliseum, including three of their last four there.
 
Saturday is West Virginia's only regular season meeting with Iowa State. The game will tip off at 2 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Lowell Galindo and Jess Settles). Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage with Tony Caridi begins at 1 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia, online via WVUsports.com and the Varsity Network and WVU Gameday apps.
 
West Virginia will remain on the road to play at Kansas State on Monday night.