It takes a lot more than just a big match from a team’s best player to upset the No. 1 team in the country. However, if preparation, mindset and in-game performance all come together, Iowa State will have a chance to do that against Nebraska this weekend in Ames.  

Currently ranked No. 25, the Cyclones have never beaten a No. 1 team during coach Christy Johnson-Lynch’s seven-plus years with the program, but she said in order to do so, her team must hope its opponent isn’t at 100 percent.

“You have to hope they’re off their game a little bit, and you have to play not perfectly, but you have to play pretty relentless,” Johnson-Lynch said, of playing Nebraska on Saturday. “So we’re going to have to flip it from what we did this weekend.”

So far this season, Iowa State has had several matches where it had chances to close it out but couldn’t seal the deal.

Last weekend, the Cyclones (5-4) found themselves at match point more than once against Iowa and Syracuse. But more often than not, the team couldn’t finish it off. Johnson-Lynch said they will have to be a completely different team in order to have a shot at the Huskers.

“We have to completely flip our mindset from this past weekend and start playing defense and getting after it,” Johnson-Lynch said.

Beside the change in mentality, the team has found another significant weakness it must improve before Saturday: blocking. With Tenisha Matlock and Jamie Straube up front, Johnson-Lynch expected the team’s blocking to be much better than it has been this season.

So far, the Cyclones are blocking just 1.57 balls per set while their opponents are blocking 2.39. The team has been putting more of a focus on blocking recently, however, and senior setter Alison Landwehr said it’s going to be a difference maker come Saturday.

“We just need to be touching a lot of balls against them because they’re big and playing defense; otherwise they can get going and start going off,” Landwehr said.

When preparing for the best team in the country, a team that knocked off No. 1 UCLA earlier this season, it not only involves physical preparation but mental as well.

Johnson-Lynch said Nebraska’s outside hitters could quite possibly be first-team All-Americans.

Combined with having an experienced setter and talented middles, one thing that makes the Cornhuskers so good is their ability to attack from all angles. Straube said that means the Cyclones will have to stay mentally sound throughout the entire match.

“There’s probably not just one or two people we can key on throughout the match like we have the past couple of games, so just mentally you have to be focused the whole time because you have so many things coming at you,” Straube said. “You can’t take a break, can’t fall asleep for a play; because a really good team will expose that.”

Nebraska and Iowa State square off at 1 p.m. Saturday at Hilton Coliseum. Neither team will have had a match since the previous weekend, making both fresh to go in this Husker-Cyclone showdown.