KANSAS CITY, Mo. – You know it’s been a good day when you can clear your bench with 3:30 remaining in a Big 12 tournament game.

That’s exactly what the eighth-seeded ISU women’s basketball team (19-11) was able to do Tuesday against ninth seed Colorado (16-14). The Cyclones were shooting lights-out for a good majority of the game, and thanks to 14 3-pointers from the team and 44 points from junior Heather Ezell and freshman Kelsey Bolte, the Cyclones held a 27-point lead with four minutes to go.

Sophomore Anna Florzac was than able to shed her warm-up jacket and hit a 14th 3-pointer that not only tied the all-time team record in the Big 12 Tournament, but also extended the lead to 30.

“It was nice to see all the kids play,” said coach Bill Fennelly. “That doesn’t happen very much in this tournament.”

The Cyclones were able to beat Colorado 76-50, the team’s largest margin of victory since a 69-41 rout of Northern Iowa on Dec. 13. It’s also the most points that the often offensively-challenged team has scored since the first time they played the Buffaloes on Jan. 23. Colorado was ranked 23rd in the nation then, and Iowa State won the first of three victories in the series this season.

Despite Colorado shooting better than 50 percent in the first half, Iowa State took a 39-28 lead into the locker room. Usually that would mean the Cyclones were even hotter than their opponent, but that wasn’t the situation.

The Cyclones shot a colder 46 percent in the first half, but they forced Colorado into 11 turnovers – compared to only one committed by them. That translated into only 20 shot attempts for the Buffaloes versus 33 for the Cyclones.

“I don’t know that we could’ve played any better than we did today – we played great,” Fennelly said. “We shot it great, and we defended great. I feel bad for Colorado because they got us on a bad day.”

Everyone contributed in large doses for the Cyclones. Bolte proved why she was recently named to the Big 12 All-Freshman Team with 19 points and five rebounds, and Second-Team All-Big 12 performer sophomore Alison Lacey accumulated a double-double with 13 points and 10 assists and, most impressive of all, no turnovers. Junior Jocelyn Anderson did what she does best and blocked three shots to go along with seven points and eight rebounds.

The biggest star, though, was Ezell, who tied a Big 12 Tournament record with seven threes. She ended up with 25 points.

“She was my only thought,” Lacey said. “‘Where was Heather?’ – whenever anyone was in trouble they looked to Heather, and she hit some big shots today.”

Those big shots were exactly what allowed a normal rotation of six players swell to 10 on Tuesday.

“When you can play four minutes in the greatest tournament in the country – they’ll remember that,” Fennelly said about the bench players who got in the game.

“And they’ll tell their kids they played 12 minutes instead of four and they were the key to the game, but whatever. They got in the box score – that’s more than I ever did.”