When the Iowa State offense was nowhere to be found most of Saturday afternoon, a stout defensive effort came to its rescue.

In a game where the ISU women’s basketball team struggled from the floor early on, a solid performance on the other end of the floor kept visiting Kansas a step behind, holding the Jayhawks to 29.6 percent shooting and creating 17 turnovers. The results of the effort were the lowest point total scored by a conference opponent against Iowa State since 1999 and a 51-42 win in the Cyclones’ final home game of the year.

“Defense has been something that we’ve based our team on, and it has kept us in a lot of games against some very good teams, said coach Bill Fennelly. “That has never been our nature, but the attention to detail and the commitment we make on a daily basis to defending is very good.”

The defense has come alive in a big way down the stretch for the Cyclones, who have held opponents to 60 points or fewer in 10 straight games.

This defensive aptitude was highlighted by Iowa State’s ability to shut down Kansas center Krysten Boogaard, who was held scoreless for just the second time this season. The freshman broke out against the Cyclones earlier this season, snagging 20 points and 12 rebounds in a 53-50 Kansas win in Lawrence on Feb. 2.

After surrendering a big game to Boogaard in the paint the last time they met, junior Jocelyn Anderson stepped up to lead the defensive charge – holding her to just one shot from the floor in the first half and four for the game.

“I think [Jocelyn] was motivated to play her,” said Fennelly. “We kind of reminded her a couple of times this week in practice about what happened to her [in Lawrence]. This time her positioning was good, and she made [Boogaard] shoot over the top of her. You’ve got to give her a lot of credit for that.”

Despite shooting just 30.4 percent from the floor and scoring only 20 points – their third lowest first-half score this season – the Cyclones still found a way to lead the game at halftime.

Iowa State’s defensive efforts have now held opponents below 50 points in a game for the 12th time this season and brought its opponents’ scoring average down to 55.3 in conference games.

“You have to find an identity on your team,” said Fennelly. “Ours now is mental toughness, physical toughness and our ability to defend. It’s allowed us to play a game and score 20 points in the first half and go to the locker room up two. And that doesn’t happen very often at this level.”

Anderson – who has seen significant playing time since the season-ending knee injury to starting post player Nicky Wieben on Jan. 16 – wrote herself into the Iowa State record books with her strong defensive showing. The junior from Gowrie broke the single-season school record for blocked shots with 63, surpassing the record set by Wieben last season by one.