The matchup looming on the horizon for the ISU women’s basketball team is no small challenge.

After disposing Oklahoma State 90-65 earlier in the week, the Cyclones (19-4, 9-3 Big 12) hit the road for their next two games, the first of which is Saturday against the No. 7 Baylor Bears, the first place team in the Big 12.

The road hasn’t been friendly to the Cyclones as of late — all four of Iowa State’s losses have come away from Hilton Coliseum, by an average of 22 points.

“Hopefully we’ll stand up to the test of a good team better than we have the last couple of times,” said ISU head coach Bill Fennelly.

In all of their losses, the Cyclones have been plagued by periods of scoring lapses and poor defense.

“When you play great teams you have to maintain some level of play,” Fennelly said. “You can’t score every time, but we can’t have the droughts that we’ve had. A lot of that is great defense, some of it is just you miss shots.”

After losing to Iowa State on Wednesday, Oklahoma State head coach Julie Goodenough said the game between Baylor and Iowa State maybe be a preview of the Big 12 tournament championship game in March.

“Baylor [has] the best post duo in America — Sophia Young and Steffanie Blackmon,” Goodenough said.

“They are just really hard to contain and they also have good three-point shooters, similar to Iowa State.”

Baylor (20-3, 10-2) enters the game with a 15-game home winning streak, the Big 12’s longest active streak and 10th best in the nation. In their last game, against Missouri on Wednesday night, Blackmon had a career-high 31 points and pulled in 11 rebounds.

“They’re very athletic; they’re going be running,” said senior guard Mary Fox, who poured in a career-high 28 points against the Cowgirls. “We’re going to have to get back in transition. They’re going to try and ram it down our throats.”

Baylor holds a one game edge in the Big 12 standings over the Cyclones.

Iowa State, Texas Tech and Texas are all tied for second place with a 9-3 record in the conference.

“If you want to challenge for the championship or anything great in life, it ought to be hard,” Fennelly said. “It’s going to be hard on Saturday, but at least we have a chance.”

The Cyclones need to find stability in a hostile Bear environment.

“You can’t survive against good teams on the road if you don’t have some level of consistency, and we’ve struggled with that,” Fennelly said. “We’ve got to find a better way; mix and match our personnel, call time outs, whatever. We’ve got to try to get better to have any remote chance to win at Baylor.”

After the Baylor game the schedule moves in Iowa State’s favor, with their final three opponents — Missouri, Texas A&M and Kansas — all having sub-.500 conference records.

“With four games to go, to say you’re playing for first place [in the Big 12], I don’t care where we’re playing,” Fennelly said. “That’s a hell of a thing for our team and I think our kids should be proud of that.”