Iowa State was able to find something in Kansas City on Tuesday that it couldn’t find in its regular season finale: offense.

The Cyclones scored just 48 points in the final game of the season — a loss to Missouri. However, they didn’t do much differently on offense, in order to see an increase in points Tuesday afternoon.

Iowa State held on for a 69-61 victory over Nebraska on in the opening round of the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City.

“We hit our shots,” senior shooting guard Kelsey Bolte said. “I think I made two shots at the Missouri game and Lauren [Mansfield] really stepped up. I think our shots were just falling tonight.”

The Cyclones out-shot Nebraska in a game largely decided by the 3-point shot. Iowa State shot 45 percent from beyond the arc while Nebraska shot 31 percent. This was an improvement for the Cyclones, as they were coming off a performance in which they made just 26 percent of their 3-point attempts.

Nebraska was 7-of-17 from behind the arc in the first half, but cooled off in the second, half shooting just 2-for-12.

Bolte was dead on with her assessment of her point guard. Mansfield scored a career-high 23 points and added five assists and five rebounds in the win.

This was one of the Cyclones’ more well-rounded performances. Bolte finished with 15 points while sophomore forward Poppens had 10 and 11 rebounds. Sophomore forward Jessica Schroll put in eight points.

Poppens was key down the stretch for Iowa State as she had seven of the Cyclones’ final 10 points in the final 4:10.

“That’s just the way it happened,” Mansfield said about why it took so long for Poppens to get going. “I feel like the defense really spread out because we were making our shots. We got it to her and she did really well with it.”

After being tied at 38 at the half, Iowa State outscored the Huskers 31-23 in the second half.

A 3-pointer by Nebraska’s Jordan Hooper at the first half buzzer sparked the need for changes in the second stanza.

“Before coach even got in [the locker room], we decided it wasn’t good enough,” Bolte said. “We decided that we needed to step up and play way better defense than we did.”

Hooper led the way for the Cornhuskers, scoring 16 points and grabbing seven rebounds. Point guard Lindsey Moore finished with 13 points and dished out nine assists.

The Cyclones will face No. 4 seed Kansas State at 1:30 p.m. Thursday in second-round action.