ISU men's hoops notebook: 15 feet of frustration, a 'winnable game,' and Taylor talk

AMES - Iowa State do-everything star Royce White has a free-throw shooting problem.

But he's not alone.

According to ESPN Stats and Info, through Thursday, the 6-8, 270-pounder who leads the Cyclones in scoring, rebounds, assists, blocked shots and steals was shooting a better percentage from the line than four others in the top 100 in attempts.

White has made 65 of 127 tries (51.2 percent) entering Saturday's big 1 p.m. matchup with No. 5 Kansas at sold-out Hilton Coliseum. 

Hamidu Rahman of New Mexico State (66-133, 49.6 percent); Mason Plumlee of Duke (52-111, 46.8); William Mosley of Northwestern State (58-125, 46.4); and Robert Nwankwo of Towson (58-127, 45.7) are all shooting the rock worse from the stripe.

White's working on it, especially after a 1 of 8 performance in Wednesday's loss at Texas.

"I'm kind of finding it," he said after putting in several hours of extra work late this week. "One of the things that a couple of my ex-basketball coaches talk about is I think about so much on the court when it comes to how the games flowing from almost a coach's type standpoint. I'm going to minimize the free throw, so that's kind of a thing where I'll just get back in my routine.”

Will it work?

He and his teammates will find out Saturday on the national stage.

"This is definitely a winnable game for us,” ISU shooting guard ad defensive specialist Chris Babb said. "We showed we could play with them.”

FRACTION FRICTION: Playing well for the vast majority of a game isn't going to cut it in the Big 12, Babb said.

"Playing very well for 30 minutes isn't going to beat a Kansas," said Babb, who drained 3-of-8 3-pointers in the Texas loss. "It isn't going to beat a lot of teams in our conference, so we've got to play a full 40 minutes."

TAYLOR'S MADE: To say Kansas guard Tyshawn Taylor's been on a tear since torching ISU for 28 isn't an overstatement.

In fact, Cyclone coach Fred Hoiberg made the "tear" reference.

How to curtail Taylor's production, then?

"We're going to have to figure out how to guard a high ball screen," said ISU guard Scott Christopherson, who scored 10 points in the loss at Lawrence. "As they kind of took the game over in the second half, we had no answer for (that), so I think this game we're going to have to come up with some sort of plan for that.”