Early March was a bit more uncomfortable for the Cyclones last season, as they needed to win a pair of games in the Big 12 Tournament to ensure a spot in the NCAA tourney. This season, however, the postseason picture is less of a mystery for the 21-7 Cyclones.

“We’re probably not as under the gun as we were last year. But there a lot of things we are playing for,” coach Bill Fennelly said. “You want to have some kind of continuity and smoothness to your game as you end the regular season, and we only have two more opportunities to do that.”

With two games left in the season, Iowa State (9-5 in Big 12) has the chance to end the regular season with its best conference record since 2005, when the team went 12-4 in Big 12 play. But to do this, the Cyclones will need to pick up a win in their final road game of the season during the Tuesday-night matchup with Missouri (13-14, 4-10).

“The challenge for our team is understanding this our fourth game in 10 days, three of them on the road,” Fennelly said. “It’s unique that you get home late after a Saturday night game and have to play Tuesday.”

Iowa State is coming off its third road win of the Big 12 season after escaping with a 59-52 victory against Texas Tech on Saturday night. With the help of senior Amanda Nisleit’s career-high 19 points and a switch to a zone defense for the first time this season, the Cyclones were able to hold off the Red Raiders, despite shooting only 33.3 percent from the field.

“It was one of the those games that when you look at the numbers, you can’t figure out how we won, necessarily,” Fennelly said. “But to our kids’ credit, we played a defense we haven’t played all year and they did great.”

As has been the case all season, Iowa State made up for its low field-goal numbers by draining eight 3-pointers and shooting 81 percent from the free-throw line down the stretch.

After Kansas State and Texas both lost last weekend, the Cyclones are now alone in fourth place. A win in each of its last two games would ensure that Iowa State finishes no lower than fourth.

Quick look at Missouri — When Iowa State hosted Missouri earlier this season, the Cyclones held the Tigers to only 14 points in the first half as Missouri scurried back to Columbia with a lopsided 65-42 loss.

“You can’t rely on that game in and game out. You certainly can’t rely on that on the road,” Fennelly said. “You have to rely on what you can control, and hopefully that’s your defense and holding on to the ball.”

The Cyclone defense will have to contend with Missouri’s hot-shooting offensive trio.

Although the tenth place Tigers have the Big 12’s second-lowest scoring average at 61.3 points per game, Missouri has three players who average double figures — Jessra Johnson, 13.4 ppg; Alyssa Hollins, 13.0 ppg; and Shakara Jones, 10.4 ppg.

“The thing that always scares me about teams like that is they’ll put three people on the court who can score 25 points,” Fennelly said. “If somebody gets hot — we’re not an offensive juggernaut.”

Even though Johnson is averaging 18.7 ppg in Missouri’s last four games, she won’t necessarily divert the Cyclones’ attention away from the other two shooters.

“We’ll focus probably equally on all three of them,” Fennelly said. “Because you don’t know. You don’t know how they’re going to play.”