No. 9 Iowa State rides a six-game winning streak into its nonconference game Wednesday against Mississippi Valley State. With a Cyclones victory, head coach Fred Hoiberg will become the fifth and fastest coach in school history to reach the 100-win mark.

His formula for winning has included embracing transfers and welcoming a fast tempo. Hoiberg spoke to ESPN.com about his one-two scoring punch, transitioning from the NBA to college and being bigger in his hometown than Buffalo Bill Cody.

Transfers have thrived at Iowa State during your tenure, is there any particular barometer that indicates that they will be successful in your system?

First and foremost anybody in this business looks for players that fit into the type of system that they run, so that's No. 1 when you get the transfer list. Do you have a connection maybe through a coach or did you recruit a kid in the past like with some of our recent transfers? And then you try to build a relationship with the kid and see if it's a right fit. We were very fortunate my first year, and we were able to rebuild very quickly. ... We took four high-level transfers, and they stepped in seamlessly that second year. We've been fortunate to get several other high-profile kids who have been able to fit with us. We've had several other kids who we've had who didn't fit in for whatever reason. So a lot goes into it, a lot of background work just talking to different people.

Now in his fifth season at Iowa State, Fred Hoiberg has never recorded a losing season. Matthew Holst/Getty Images

You spent 10 seasons playing in the NBA under coaches like Larry Brown before making the transition to the front office. Was it a tougher transition going from the league to college coaching?

There are a lot of parallels from working in a front office position to being a coach with free agency on the NBA side of things to recruiting in the college side of things. You're out meeting and talking with season-ticket groups and ticket holders, same thing here you meet with the fan base and try to get them excited for what you're trying to put together. ... I played 10 years in the NBA for some great coaches, and I had great coaches here at Iowa State. I was confident that I could put together a successful system. Now it's about all those other things that I learned being in a front office position. I think it helped me greatly being in that spot. I was able to learn under Kevin McHale, who was the (general manager) when I was with the Timberwolves. I'd sit in his office and talk basketball for two hours a day, and shoot, that's more knowledge than a lot of people get to sit around a Hall of Famer and talk basketball. So that definitely helped.

I assume your nickname "The Mayor' came from being a homegrown guy from Ames playing and coaching at your alma mater, does it have anything to do with your networking skills?

I don't think so. It started with one of the players who was a senior at Iowa State named Doug Collins. When I committed to Iowa State, there was a lot of publicity about it and he called me the mayor and it kind of took off from there. Once Dick Vitale with his PTPer of the week called me that, it really took off.

What do you see as the biggest difference between coaching college kids and managing NBA personalities?

I think there are a lot of similarities with how you deal with the kids. The biggest thing is in the NBA, they've been away from home. Most college kids, this is their first experience being away. Our biggest challenge as a coach is to help these kids transition into becoming young men. In the NBA, they've already experienced that. In terms of handling them, in my opinion, I think there are a lot of similarities. You give them a lot of responsibilities and at the same time hold them accountable for their actions. I played with every type of personality out there. I think I played with 96 players during my tenure in the NBA so I've seen it all. Every type of personality from all over the world and all that life experience is helping with what I'm doing now.

Georges Niang and Bryce Dejean-Jones are two of the top four scorers in the Big 12. What about your offensive system enables that balance?

Their spacing is good enough to where those guys will make a play if the defense helps. I think Monte Morris is obviously in that mix as well, a kid who always makes the right play. That's the kind of basketball I learned, and it always fits very well just to get out and play with good pace and get the ball to our playmakers hands. It's pretty unique. It's just basically finding the best athlete we want to expose and making the defense make adjustments.

Morris ranks first nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio, and he's playing a lot since DeAndre Kane graduated. How has he been able to avoid the sophomore slump?

He's always in the right spot. He's always plugging gaps. He does the little things that don't show up in the box score. Obviously, confidence plays a role. You're a lot more confident going into your second year because you've been there you've been in a lot of the battles and had your growing pains. He's just a lot more comfortable out there, at least at this point of the year. I couldn't afford not to have him on the floor last year because he did so many little things for our team.

We've always heard of Hilton Magic from Iowa State being so tough to beat in Hilton Coliseum, but do you know any good magic tricks?

No I'm not very good at magic. I did witness the birth of Hilton Magic as a ball boy though when Johnny Orr established it. It was awesome to be a part of it as a kid seeing what he brought in terms of style of play.

Hoiberg's name has been mentioned for several NBA openings, but he's still in Ames. MCT via Getty Images

What does it mean to coach your alma mater and your hometown team? Does something as simple as your drive to work every day send you down memory lane?

I think my life has come full circle. I don't know if it's actual flashbacks of specific games or playing here. It's more the memories of growing up in this community and being a part of something extremely special. It's a great place to raise a family. I loved being raised here. I grew up five blocks from Hilton Coliseum. My dad was a professor at Iowa State. He used to walk to work so I was a part of this great university community at an early age. I wasn't just a ball boy for basketball, I was a ball boy for the football team, and that's basically where I developed a passion for Iowa State athletics as a kid spending time on the sidelines of two major sports.

Some thought when you took this job that you'd be right back in the NBA soon. What would you say to those people?

I still can drive by where I went to elementary school. I get to coach in front of the people who supported me when I was playing here really when I was going to Ames High School. It's really cool to be back here. It's hard to explain. I have something very special and very unique. I coach every game in front of my parents and in front of my in-laws. Not many people have that.

My kids play golf with their grandpas pretty much every day during the summer. That's pretty cool. That's something they will remember later on in their lives. My brother lives here and one lives in Omaha, my parents, my in-laws. The most important thing in my life is family, and I get to be here and experience something pretty special with them.

The range of famous people from Iowa is pretty eclectic: Pony Express rider Buffalo Bill Cody, President Herbert Hoover, columnist Ann Landers, track star Lolo Jones and actor Ashton Kutcher to name a few. Are you in line to become the most revered of the bunch?

No, it's pretty sad if that is the case.

STATE OF THE GAME

Each week we'll have a coach talk about an aspect of college basketball.

West Virginia coach Bob Huggins on how officials call blocks and charges: "I think the block/charge deal that we did a year ago, that needs to be changed (The defensive player has to be set before the offensive player goes into motion). I already think that's back to where it used to be -- at least it has been in our first few games and games I've been able to watch. I don't think it's changed much. Now, last year, it changed drastically from the beginning the year. But now the way that it's called is inconsistent. It doesn't seem to me that the rule ever really changed."

TALKING POINTS

Louisiana Tech's Mike White on the dilemma of harping on free throw shooting: "We do not talk about it a lot. You do not want it to become a mental thing. Through trial and error as a coach, I have had scenarios where we just beat up free throw shooting and talked about it a lot and it has helped. I have had times where we talked about it ad nauseam and it backfired because guys get up there and it is the crippling effect, they think about it too much. We have tried to hold it in the middle of the road. We relay how important free throws are, it is going to win you games and lose you games. It cannot become mental."

Indiana's Tom Crean on advice he received from Doug Collins on managing personnel in late-game situations: "I said, 'What's your key to the last five minutes of the game? And he said, play your five toughest players.' He said, 'Don't worry about position, don't worry about egos, play your five toughest players,' and I've always filed that away, and there's been times we've done it."

Florida coach Billy Donovan on establishing an identity after a rocky start: "What can we hang our hat on every single game that we know that we can do that's going to have an impact on the game? For us, to be honest with you, that's been very erratic, not consistent. There hasn't been one thing from game to game that I can honestly sit there and say 'We're doing this every game at a high level.' Whether that's your identity or searching to find out who you are, there's a lot of ways of putting it. But I also think from a different standpoint, as a player, every player wants to play well ... But what do you stand for? What can you be rest assured that you're going to be able to bring to the table every game? That's something without question that we need to search for."