A little momentum for the ISU women’s basketball team could soon snowball into something huge.

After a blowout home win over Colorado and sufficient time to adjust after the season-ending injury of the team’s starting center, the team’s morale is improving with each passing day.

“Our morale is better than what it was two weeks ago, and I think everything is just getting better as the days go by,” said freshman Kelsey Bolte.

The Cyclones were in shambles after their second major post contributor – first Toccara Ross and then Nicky Wieben – went down during the Texas game on Jan. 16. After that they lost three straight, including an 80-49 embarrassment in Manhattan, Kan., just two games ago.

Fortunately for the team’s mental state, the Cyclones were able to clobber Colorado on Wednesday.

When a team is as down as the Cyclones were just one week ago, a little success can go a long way.

“After losing at Kansas State, it was a bad loss, everyone was pretty down, and the coaches were definitely not in a good mood,” said guard Heather Ezell. “And now, everyone is feeling good. It’s nice to get a win. There are smiles in the locker room, which is nice. Everybody is excited and ready to practice, which we hadn’t really been like before.”

The players also seem to have accepted the losses of Wieben and Ross, but still treat the two as if they were on the team.

“During timeouts, Heather is always high-fiving Nikki and T. There’s still that bond between them,” said head coach Bill Fennelly.

Ezell thinks people just notice the positive interactions with the wounded duo more because they are in street clothes and on crutches.

“After Nicky got hurt, she said ‘I still want to be a part of this team, I still want to be around it,’ and same thing with Toccara,” Ezell said. “I always gave them high fives before they were hurt. Why not now? I guess people just notice it more because they’re on crutches.”

The Cyclones take their trimmed-down seven-player rotation into Lawrence, Kan., to the famed Allen Fieldhouse where the Kansas Jayhawks await.

Although the Jayhawks seem to be struggling a bit at 12-8 overall and 1-5 in the conference, Fennelly doesn’t take anybody lightly, especially on the road and especially not now.

“If you look at the standings it says one thing, but we’re not exactly a juggernaut right now,” said Fennelly. “We’re happy we won against Colorado and we’re one game ahead of Kansas in the standings right now.”

If the Cyclones can pull off a rare road win in one of the best conferences in the country and do it in between a massacre of Colorado and a three-game home stand, the snowball has the potential to get a lot plumper in the near future.

“Momentum is a very critical part of sports,” said Fennelly. “It impacts everything you do – how you practice, how you study, how you treat other people. The momentum we have right now is that we swept Colorado.”