A hush fell across Hilton Coliseum on Sunday as a dejected Iowa State squad jogged off to the locker room following its heartbreaking 55-52 loss to then-No.13 Texas.

In a battle between third-place teams, the Longhorns were able to fight back from a 11-point deficit and ultimately edge the Cyclones down the stretch, ending the team’s 13-game home win streak.

Despite the tough loss, Iowa State, which is still very much in the hunt for one of the Big 12’s top spots, has little time to lick its wounds as the Cyclones prepare for Nebraska on Wednesday night.

“The challenge for our team is handle the pressure — and other than that we have about two days and a total of about two hours to get ourselves ready to play,” ISU coach Bill Fennelly said Monday.

With such little time to run through plays on the court, the Cyclones must put as much effort into doing what they can off it.

“We don’t have that much practice time — the physical practice time. We know we’ll have a lot of film sessions so we have to be mentally prepared,” said senior Amanda Nisleit.

The short preparation time is slightly eased by the fact the Cyclones have an idea what to expect from the Huskers, having played a little more than three weeks ago. In the teams’ first meeting, Iowa State quelled its five-year losing streak in Lincoln by defeating the Huskers 62-48.

“You can try to go through as many practice situations as you can, but unless you’ve played the team you don’t know exactly what they do. So that will help knowing that we’ve played them before,” senior Heather Ezell said.

Although the win became Iowa State’s second in what became a five-game win streak, Nebraska’s loss kept the team’s disappointing season headed in a downward spiral. Already having started the season a sub-par 10-7, the Huskers went on to lose their next five straight, including the loss to Cyclones, plunging Nebraska into the bottom of the Big 12 standings.

The Huskers, however, had a little more positive end to their weekend than the Cyclones did, as Nebraska picked up its first win in the month of February, with a 62-56 victory over Texas Tech.

“They’ve struggled. They’ve been real competitive but haven’t won a lot of games. But their mood today probably is better than ours,” Fennelly said. “They’re smiling and happy going to practice because they won and we lost to a very tough team at home.”

Although the Huskers are near the bottom of most the conference’s offensive categories, they receive a bit of relief from star forward Cory Montgomery. Montgomery is eighth in the Big 12 in scoring, as well as rebounding.

Even though he’s not overlooking the Huskers, Fennelly said the key to the game may not be what Nebraska does, but instead how his team responds to losing a close one at home.

“Sometimes it’s not about the other guy,” Fennelly said. “Our kids just have to play with a chip on their shoulder and be a little p.o.’d and take it out on Nebraska.”

March Madness

approaches — As Iowa State enters the stretch run of the season, talks of NCAA Tournament aspirations are starting to heat up.

“Besides my family, the only other thing I think about every single day of my life is the NCAA Tournament,” Fennelly said.

Fennelly can be comforted by the fact that the Cyclones boast a solid tournament resume, with four wins against top-25 teams. Although Oklahoma is well in command of first place, Iowa State is among five top Big 12 teams (Baylor, Kansas State, Texas, Texas A&M) within one or two games of each other in the standings. But the Cyclones, who are last among those five teams, will need to hope for some movement above them.

‘We do need some help. There’s no question we need some help, but there are five teams that are all kinda jumbled together. A lot of them are playing each other. We did what we could do with the teams above us. We had some success, some we didn’t, but we can’t impact that anymore,” Fennelly said.

The focus now for the Cyclones switches to trying to finish the season on a high note. On paper, Iowa State appears to have the advantage as the it plays Big 12’s bottom four teams in five of its last six games, but the Cyclones aren’t taking it for granted.

“Our players have heard this, that can look at anyone’s record and assume that you’re going to win games. We’re not that good. That’s just not this team,” Fennelly said.

No matter how the season ends up, thoughts of the NCAA tournament are on the minds of the players too, albeit maybe not as much as their coach.

“He’s in the office probably thinking about it when we’re in class thinking about other things. But I know its on a lot of our minds,” Ezell said.

“We have things in our lockers or at home that keep us reminded about it and it’s things we think about at least every day.”