Before his team took the court Feb. 15, ISU women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly wanted to remind the players of one thing.

“We talked at length before the game about finishing things and how special people finish and they don’t look for excuses,” Fennelly said.

Finishing things has certainly proved to be easier said than done, though. The Cyclones dropped a home game against Texas Christian on Feb. 5 in the final seconds and couldn’t quite close out Texas on the road in the final minutes on Feb. 9.

But Iowa State (17-7, 6-7 Big 12) found a way to push back this time, beating Kansas 72-69 Feb. 15 in Hilton Coliseum. The looks Fennelly saw on his players’ faces after the game said everything.

Senior forward Hallie Christofferson had a lot of motivation coming into the game, too. There was something extra Fennelly was seeing in her.

“I think she has taken a lot of the brunt of the lack of success recently, unfairly,” Fennelly said. “I think she had that look in practice the last two days and I think she carried it to the court [Feb. 15].”

Christofferson poured in a game-high 29 points and added eight rebounds in 38 minutes of action. Perhaps her biggest moment of the game, though, came in the final seconds.

A turnover by KU guard CeCe Harper forced the Jayhawks to foul Christofferson immediately with the Cyclones leading just 70-69 and 14 seconds remaining on the clock. She sprinted down the floor to the line, rising up with confidence on each.

Swish. Swish.

“You have to want to step up to the line and shoot,” Christofferson said of the moment and being able to give her team the three-point lead.

Faced with a “foul or defend” situation, Iowa State elected to set up its defense and trust its players to play it out. After the defend-situation-gone wrong against TCU in the one-point loss the week before, communication was not an issue Feb. 15.

The Cyclones switched with every screen set by the Jayhawks and did not give Kansas good looks throughout the possession. A desperate heave from 3-point range was all-for-naught as the shot hit nothing but air, sealing the ISU win.

“To our kids’ credit, we kind of felt we knew the play they were going to run because they had run it in a couple other games,” Fennelly said. “We practiced it a couple different times and [ISU assistant coach] Billy [Fennelly] scouted them, walked them through it at the end and we couldn’t have guarded the play any better then we guarded it.”

For Kansas, the end of the game felt only like a missed opportunity to steal a Big 12 road win.

“You’ve got to get a shot at the end,” said KU coach Bonnie Henrickson. “I mean, you can live with it if it doesn’t go, but you’ve got to get a shot.

“That’ll make you nauseous.”