In a crowd of 11,473 Cyclone fans, none were happier than a busload of 30-plus who trekked to Ames from Lakewood, Ohio to watch Iowa State outlast Texas A&M 68-54 Saturday.

Senior Mary Fox didn’t disappoint her family and friends who traveled nearly 700 miles to the game, as she chipped in 15 points and six rebounds.

“It was very exciting and a great feeling,” Fox said.

The win improves No. 21 Iowa State’s record to 21-5 (11-4 Big 12) heading into the its final conference game of the season against Kansas on Tuesday.

The Cyclones used balanced scoring from the inside out, getting 18 points and a career-high 14 rebounds from post Katie Robinette while guard Anne O’Neil added 15 points.

Sophomore Lyndsey Medders tallied 14 points and dished out 10 assists.

“Medders and O’Neil are as good of a guard combination as we have in this league,” said A&M coach Gary Blair. “They know the game. Isn’t it great to see kids who know how to play the game and can still get by without being the most athletic people in the world? … I love those guards.”

The Cyclones limited the Aggies to 28.8 percent shooting and held A&M’s leading scorer, Morenike Atunrase, to six points on 3-of-17 shooting. Charlette Castile was the only Aggie to reach double digits, scoring a career-best 20 points on six 3-pointers.

The Cyclones opened the game with a 7-0 run, and it took nearly five minutes for A&M to score its first basket. An ISU scoring drought and turnovers allowed the Aggies to close the gap to 7-6, but the Cyclones then went on a 13-1 run.

“Sometimes we looked good and [did] what we wanted to do and sometimes they looked good, but in the middle it [was] kind of ugly,” said ISU coach Bill Fennelly. “But that’s what’s great about college basketball.”

A&M closed the gap again, but Fox hit a 3-pointer at the end of the first half to send the Cyclones into the locker room with a 30-22 advantage.

“[Fox] hit every big shot when we made a defensive mistake in the ball game,” Blair said.

With just under five minutes left in the game, Fox hit her fourth 3-pointer, putting Iowa State up by 10.

“[I was] just in the right place at the right time,” she said.

With one game left in the regular season, and teams still jockeying for position in the Big 12 tournament, Iowa State sits tied with Kansas State for fourth place in the conference.

• The Cyclones held the Aggies to 28.8 percent shooting from the field, the lowest total since Iowa State held Kansas to 25 percent in a Jan. 12 game.

• Both Lyndsey Medders and Katie Robinette recorded double-doubles in Saturday’s game, the second time all year two players have been in double figures in two categories. Megan Ronhovde (12 points, 13 rebounds) and Anne O’Neil (19 points 11 rebounds) accomplished the feat at Colorado on Jan. 8.

• Medders’ 10 assists put her only one behind Stacy Frese, who is in fourth place on Iowa State’s single-season assist chart. Medders, who now has 164 on the season, is 43 behind Lindsey Wilson, who recorded 207 assists during the 2002 season.

• Iowa State only played seven people on Saturday, the fewest players it has used all year. The Cyclones have used eight players many times over the season.

• Texas A&M collected 18 offensive rebounds, the most an opponent has collected since Texas grabbed 19 on Feb. 5. UNLV collected 28 offensive rebounds in a Dec. 19 game at Las Vegas.

• Iowa State improved to 4-2 against the Big 12 South, its best record against the South Division since the 2000-01 season.

—Nathan Wilcke