By the tone of coach Bill Fennelly’s voice, it sounded as if the Cyclones had just been beat by 30 points.

Three days after a dominant all-around performance against Northern Iowa, the ISU women’s basketball team struggled with its offense against Creighton, and was plagued by numerous mental mistakes on defense, in a narrow 63-59 win.

We can’t play that way and win very often,” Fennelly said. “We have to find ways, when we’re not shooting like we did at UNI, to guard smarter and make better decisions with the ball. It’s just a lack of focus and a lack of preparation.”

The No. 24 Cyclones (3-0) jumped out to a 13-5 lead behind six points from Nicky Wieben and Ashley Arlen’s first made three-point shot of her career.

That would be the largest lead Iowa State would take in the game.

The Bluejays (0-3) clawed their way back behind Chevelle Herring’s 16 first half points, including a three-pointer with three seconds remaining that sent the two teams into the locker room tied at 29. Herring finished the game with a career and game-high 24 points.

The Iowa State started to heat up after the break, but still could not pull away from the Bluejays due to several early fouls. Creighton, the preseason No. 2 pick in the Missouri Valley conference, was already into the bonus with eight minutes remaining in the game.

 “We fouled more tonight that we have ever,” Fennelly said. “They shot 14 free throws in the first half, and that’s usually a month for us. We’re not a team that’s going to turn you over, so we can’t give them free offense.”

Thirteen of Creighton’s 29 first half points came from free throws, while the Cyclones struggled from the charity stripe, making 16 of 25 in the game.

After senior Heather Ezell hit one of two free throws to give the Cyclones a 60-59 advantage with 40 seconds left, Herring missed a fade-away shot on Creighton’s next trip down, and Iowa State’s Kelsey Bolte was fouled after grabbing the rebound.

Bolte also made just one of two, still leaving the door open for the Bluejays. Herring again had a shot roll in and out of the basket, and after the rebound, Wieben went to the line where she missed the front-end of a one-and-one.

On the rebound, forward Tocarra Ross fouled Creighton’s Megan Neuvirth with 5.1 seconds left, sending Neuvirth to the line with the chance to tie the game at 61. But Neuvirth missed both, and Alison Lacey sank two free throws on the next possession to clinch the game for the Cyclones.

“We got a lot of big rebounds on the defensive end,” Ezell said. “And we got ourselves to the free throw line which gave us a chance to win, but we missed some that we really needed to make. The good thing is that it’s something we can control and hopefully fix before the next game.”

The Cyclones had won their previous two games by an average of 28.5 points, making this game the first time the team has gone down to the wire this season. While the team left Omaha with a victory, Fennelly knows their late-game tactics need to be improved.

“This was the first time we’ve had to handle a game that was close,” said Fennelly.” And we didn’t handle it very well. We were lucky. We made a couple of plays that won the game, but it’s still not acceptable.”

 The next stop of the current six-game road tour will be in Honolulu, Hawaii, where the team will compete in the Waikiki Mariott Classic this weekend.

The Cyclones know they can’t afford the same reckless mental mistakes in the tournament, which includes a game against the No. 8 Stanford Cardinal.

“We definitely have a lot of things to work on,” Ezell said. “There were a lot of things in a game that is close that have to work on in practice, especially with our free throws and the fact that we fouled way too much.”

Iowa State will tip off its first game in Honolulu against Prairie View A&M at 3 p.m. CT on Friday.