ISU's Chris Babb: Clutch play on both ends needed again against K-State

AMES - Iowa State's Royce White posed the question matter-of-factly.

Teammate Chris Babb delivered.

“I walked up to him and asked if he was ready for the dagger,” said White, who saw Babb deliver the knockout blow - a 3-pointer with 56 seconds left - in Saturday's landmark 72-64 win over then-No. 5 Kansas at Hilton Coliseum. “He said, ‘Yeah, for sure.'”

Call it gutsy. Confident. Cool under pressure.

Babb's been clutch all season - on both ends of the floor - for the Cyclones (15-6, 5-3 Big 12), who face Kansas State (15-5, 4-4) in Tuesday's 8 p.m. game at home.

“Chris doesn't ever get tired,” ISU coach Fred Hoiberg said.

Good thing.

Babb stars as the Cyclones' lockdown perimeter defender - and is a key reason the league's leading scorer, J'Covan Brown, scored just 12 points in a recent loss at Texas and Missouri's Marcus Denmon, the conference's second-leading scorer, made just one field goal in an earlier tough home defeat.

He's played 38 or more minutes in four Big 12 games this season and didn't sit at all against the Tigers, or in Saturday's win over the Jayhawks.

“My dad just always told me, ‘You can have a bad day on offense, but you can't have a bad day on defense,' or you shouldn't,” said Babb, who shook off a 3-for-24 slump from beyond the arc to provide the Kansas “dagger.”

That shot-clock beating swish put ISU up 67-59 and came off a dish from Scott Christopherson, who said Babb may have been over-thinking on offense during the recent downturn.

“I don't think it has been a physical thing with him at all,” Christopherson said. “I've gone through it before. As soon as you stop thinking about it is when you'll start making shots.”

They'll need Babb and others to have a hot - and steady - hand against the hungry Wildcats.

“(It's) the toughest team we'll play all year,” Hoiberg said. “The most physical team we'll play all year.”

Babb will likely guard leading scorer Rodney McGruder, who's averaging 15.7 points and 5.5 rebounds per game.

And if that means playing 40 minutes, so be it.

“That's what our offseason's for,” Babb said.

The junior transfer from Arlington, Texas, nearly started his college career in Iowa City.

Coming out of the private Oakridge School - but a veteran of high-level summer AAU tournaments - he narrowed his choices to Penn State and Iowa.

The 6-5 guard chose Happy Valley.

“It worked out for the first couple years,” Babb said.

Now Babb's working out and rising up for the Cyclones.

He expects to graduate in the spring and plans to embark on a master's degree program in a business-related field of study shortly thereafter.

“Life's about more than basketball,” Babb said.

Eventually, anyway.

Hoiberg said Babb told him late in Saturday's game he'd hit a big shot.

He didn't doubt it.

“It's just a confidence thing,” Babb said. “I think I was telling myself more than I was telling him. He just happened to be standing right there. But my teammates just have a lot of faith in me and we have a lot of guys that can hit big shots. I think that's something that's dangerous about our team.”