Whether it’s going to a movie, out to eat or just hanging out after practice, the Cyclone women’s basketball team is together off the court more than ever this season. A stretch of three games on the road, including the Northwestern Tournament, added to the togetherness of this year’s ISU squad.

“I think our cohesiveness as a team is building every day, we go to practice or we go to dinner afterwards, it just depends on what we want to do,” said junior guard Kelsey Bolte. “We spend so much more time together than we did the previous years since I’ve been here.”

The Cyclones return to Ames with that cohesiveness, and although playing in Hilton Coliseum again is seen as a benefit, the next three weeks may be some of the toughest on the players.

“The biggest thing right now coming in is we’re going to have to balance all of our school,” Bolte said. “But I think we’re really excited to get back into Hilton and we practiced there [Monday], so we’re all excited about that.”

The home stint will begin with a matchup against Mississippi State at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Ames. Along with the first game back in Hilton, the players will have to juggle nine practice days and two more games before Finals Week begins Dec. 14.

The Devilettes have never faced the Cyclones and are currently 2–1 on the season, suffering a loss to No. 9 Xavier recently on the road. Mississippi Valley State has been led by guards Ashley Brown and Ka’Neshia Smith so far this season, and the Devilettes are currently shooting 34.1 percent from the field.

“Overall I think we’re making progress and this is a big week for us because it’ll be the last time before we get to really practice four days before we play,” said coach Bill Fennelly. “We have a couple more extra days of practice that you don’t get during the season.”

The extra days of practice in preparation for the upcoming games are something Fennelly and the Cyclones will take advantage of and something they won’t have to benefit from later on in the season. In the upcoming practices, Fennelly plans to focus on both sides of the ball and issues they saw while playing against Drake and in the Northwestern Tournament.

“I think the biggest thing is we need to add a few more things offensively to what we do and defensively we’ve got to be a little bit better about how we help in the post,” Fennelly said. “You’re so consumed by preparing for an opponent that you don’t have a lot of time to work on your own stuff and that becomes kind of an issue.”

Focusing on their own game plan will include adding to the defensive strategy, since the Cyclones relied on a basic defensive game this past weekend. While Fennelly wanted to keep the freshmen and the rest of the team comfortable to begin the season, the time may be now to add onto the defensive plan.

“Well, there’s always areas that we play in that we can improve on,” said senior guard Denae Stuckey. “We still can improve more on executing the plays better and executing our defense better.”