DALLAS — A sore foot couldn’t keep Anne O’Neil from stealing the show as Iowa State beat Nebraska 63-52 Tuesday in the first round of the Big 12 women’s basketball tournament.

O’Neil didn’t practice Friday through Sunday and participated in only 20 minutes of yesterday’s practice, but still managed to score a game-high 20 points in 39 minutes of action.

“I think the adrenaline kicked in, and she played through it,” ISU head coach Bill Fennelly said. “I’m very proud of how she played.”

O’Neil said the Big 12 Tournament is a special experience, one she didn’t want to miss.

“You’re only in the Big 12 Tournament one time a year,” O’Neil said. “The more active I am on [the foot], the better it is, so we’ll be ready for tomorrow.”

Freshman Lyndsey Medders scored the first ISU points on a 3-pointer with 18:01 left in the first half.

“I was nervous, definitely,” Medders said. “I woke up at 6 o’clock this morning.”

Medders’ anxiety didn’t show, though — she scored 15 points in her first Big 12 Tournament appearance.

Both Iowa State and Nebraska were plagued with poor shooting in the first half. Midway through the half, Nebraska held a 9-7 lead.

“The first 10 minutes, both teams were so nervous and scared they couldn’t even get their hands above their heads and shoot the ball,” Fennelly said. “It was very hard to score early in the game.”

After a tie at 11-11, Iowa State went on a mini-run aided by 6-of-6 free throw shooting to close out the half with leading 26-22. Iowa State would finish the game shooting 83.3 percent from the line.

“We shoot free throws all the time,” Fennelly said. “It’s something we’ve stressed to our team dramatically because of our sometimes struggles to score. Tonight, we stepped up and made a lot of them at crucial times. 20-of-24 in a conference tournament says a lot about not only the ability of our kids, but their practice habits and what they’re trying to do to get to this point.”

Iowa State won the battle of the boards, outrebounding Nebraska 39-29. Katie Robinette led the way with eight rebounds for the Cyclones. Senior Erica Junod contributed 11 points and four rebounds.

Waiting in the wings for Iowa State are the top-seeded Texas Longhorns. Texas and Iowa State played once in the regular season, with the Longhorns winning convincingly 67-45 on Jan. 17 in Austin, Texas. Iowa State was outrebounded by a 49-20 margin in that game and held to 33 percent shooting.

“Honestly, I think it’s just going to be one of those games where we’re going to need to play obviously as well as we can play. We need them to not play as well,” Fennelly said. “When we played in Austin, we just got destroyed on the backboards. It was some obscene figure that I had to look at four or five times because I thought they did the stats wrong, it was so bad.”

Texas is the Big 12 regular season co-champion and got a bye in the first round, but O’Neil said that might play to Iowa State’s advantage.

“We were able to get some of the jitters out [by playing on Tuesday],” O’Neil said. “Tomorrow, we’ll feel like we have a home-court advantage because we’ve already played here.”

A key for Iowa State will be lassoing Texas forward Tiffany Jackson, the 2004 Big 12 Freshman of the Year. Jackson had 12 points and eight rebounds in the teams’ first matchup this season.

Fennelly said Iowa State is excited for the challenge that lies ahead.

“I think if you can’t embrace the chance to play a great team in this kind of environment, you probably don’t belong in college athletics whether you’re coaching or playing or a fan,” Fennelly said. “We’re looking forward to it, we really are.”

O’Neil said Iowa State being the underdog takes the pressure off of the Cyclones.

“No one’s expecting us to win, because they’re the No. 1-seeded team,” O’Neil said. “So we’ll just go out there and play our hearts out and give them all they can handle.”