BERKELEY, Calif. – Nicky Wieben couldn’t have picked a much better time to score her first basket of the game.

Iowa State was teetering on the edge of defeat, trailing Michigan State by seven with just over a minute left.

Amanda Nisleit drove towards the basket, trying to the lay the ball in. The shot rolled off the rim, but Wieben snuck by Michigan State’s Allyssa Dehaan and dropped in the put back.

Not only did that shot start the Cyclones on their last-minute comeback, but it also tempered what had been a frustrating night on offense.

“I wasn’t was able to get around her and score, but tonight was obviously one of those games we had other people come through, Wieben said.”

Wieben ended the night with only three points, shooting 1-for-11 from the field. Wieben was kept off balance for much of the game by the physical 6-foot-9-inch center Deahaan.

“I wasn’t able to get around her and score, but tonight was obviously one of those games we had other people come through,” Wieben said.

But what Wieben couldn’t do on offense, she made up for on the defensive end.

Throughout the first half, Wieben looked almost helpless trying to slow down the Spartans’ tallest player. Sixteen of Dehaan’s 23 points came before halftime, a majority of which came in the paint.

This all changed in the second half.

Dehaan managed to score eight more points in the game, but a revitalized Wieben settled in defensively, keeping Dehaan from regaining her touch.

Wieben grimaced and strained to keep a body continually on Dehaan. Wieben slowly pushed Dehaan away from the basket, which helped free up a path inside that the Cyclones were able to use to cut to the basket.

“Nicky was able to bring Dehaan outside and got her away from the basket,” said senior Heather Ezell. “[Alison Lacey] was able to beat her man to the basket and get some fouls and draw some easy shots from the free-throw line.”

It was also Wieben’s steal following her lone basket that set up Ezell’s bank-in 3-point shot that brought Iowa State within two with 50.8 seconds remaining.

Simply Aus-some in the postseason

After scoring just 13 points in the final three regular season games, Alison Lacey has certainly made up for it in five tournament games since.

A native of Canberra, Australia, Lacey is averaging 19.4 points per game in postseason play, starting with her 25-point performance that led the Cyclones to a 59-55 victory over Texas in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament. She followed that up with 12, 18 and 13-point performances before dropping a season-high 29 and hitting the game-winning three-pointer in the third round of the NCAA Tournament against Michigan State.

The junior is shooting 44.9 percent during her hot streak, as well as 50 percent (17-34) from beyond the arch. She is also shooting 94.7 percent (18-19) from the free-throw line. To supplement her scoring, Lacey has registered at least four assists in each postseason game (23 total) and has only turned the ball over eight times.

Stuckey joins the 3-pointer parade

For someone who shot just 1-13 (7.7 percent) from behind the 3-point line in the regular season, it may come as a surprise to many that Denae Stuckey has quietly become another option for the Cyclones from downtown.

With leading-scorer Heather Ezell out for the first round of the Big 12 Tournament against Texas with a hairline fracture in her hand, coach Bill Fennelly came to her and said that when she caught the ball and had an open look, she had to shoot it. Despite her tendency to often pass on the wide-open trey, she pulled the trigger against the Longhorns and knocked down a three-ball for the first time since Dec 14. That shot tied the game at 50 with three minutes remaining and propelled the Cyclones to a 59-55 victory.

The momentum she provided with that make carried over to the following games, and Stuckey is now 3-4 from behind the arc in the postseason after her bucket from the left wing against the Spartans that put the Cyclones up 49-44. Stuckey is one of nine different ISU players to hit from long range in the NCAA Tournament.