LINCOLN, Neb. – With 9 minutes, 20 seconds remaining and the ISU women’s basketball team trailing Nebraska by 11 points, Megan Ronhovde stepped to the free-throw line and missed two free throws – the second shot an air ball.

That described the kind of night the Cyclones had in a 54-42 loss Wednesday to Nebraska in front of a crowd of 4,813 in Lincoln.

Playing without junior point guard Lyndsey Medders, who was sidelined with an ankle injury suffered in Sunday’s loss to Kansas State, the Cyclones (12-7, 3-5 Big 12) shot a dismal 34.1 percent from the field. Only four ISU players scored in the game.

“We’ve got to find somebody who can score,” said ISU coach Bill Fennelly. “We have too many people playing too many minutes and not helping us offensively, and that’s going to kill you.”

When the Cyclones beat the Huskers, 79-57, on Jan. 14 in Ames, Medders scored a game-high 31 points and distributed seven assists.

“We lost our point guard, our leading scorer, our No. 1 assist person,” Fennelly said. “It put everybody else in a bad spot, but Nebraska did a great job. They did exactly what they needed to do.

“As soon as they saw Lyndsey [Medders] wasn’t playing, they pressed us from the time the warm-ups started until the time the game ended.”

Without their point guard, the Cyclones struggled against Nebraska’s full-court press and turned the ball over 21 times, 13 times in the first half.

“Not having Lyndsey [Medders} in the game was obviously a big factor for us tonight,” Ronhovde said. “She’s our primary ball-handler. I think there were situations where we couldn’t get into our offense quick enough, and I think that disrupted our offense.

“You lose your point guard who starts up your offense and gets your offense going, it’s going to be hard to get into the flow of offense.”

Iowa State pulled within 23-21 on Brittany Wilkins’s layup with 19:22 left in the game, but the Huskers went on a 10-0 run, ultimately burying the Cyclones, as they never pulled closer than nine points the rest of the game.

Wilkins, Iowa State’s second-leading scorer, who had been averaging 14.6 points a game going into Wednesday’s game, was held to eight points in 28 minutes. The 6-foot-3 senior center struggled with foul trouble, picking up her fourth foul with 12:51 left.

Fennelly praised the energy and play of Ronhovde and freshman guard Heather Ezell, but said other players need to step up offensively for the Cyclones Saturday at Kansas.

He said Medders is “extremely doubtful” for that game.

“This is probably the same team we’re going to use on Saturday, so the team better deal with it,” Fennelly said. “There’s 35 minutes and a lot of shots available for this team right now, and somebody will hopefully want those minutes and want those shots.”