Women’s basketball head coach Bill Fennelly knows he witnessed two different Kansas teams this season. It’s true that both squads had the same names stitched across their chests, but they clearly didn’t play the same way.

Against one of the teams, Iowa State squeaked out a two-point win at Hilton Coliseum. Iowa State faced the other group in Lawrence, Kan., last Wednesday and dominated them from start to finish.

The eighth-seeded Cyclones (12-15, 7-9 Big 12) hope the latter shows up at noon Tuesday when they take on the ninth-seeded Jayhawks (10-17, 3-13) in the first round of the Big 12 conference tournament in Dallas. The winner will play top-seeded Texas at noon on Wednesday.

Fennelly has pinpointed what went wrong in the first matchup and what went right last week.

“We got killed on the rebounds here and barely won, and [at Kansas] we were plus-three and we won a lot easier,” Fennelly said. “That’s where it started for us.”

Iowa State outrebounded Kansas 38-35 in last week’s 69-44 thumping. On Jan. 11, it was Kansas winning the battle of the boards by 19 — the largest margin by an ISU opponent since 1996.

“They’re a very good rebounding team,” sophomore guard Anne O’Neil said. “We’ve got to concentrate on a few things — playing good defense and rebounding, and hopefully our offense will come together.”

Iowa State’s tallest regular is Lisa Kriener at 6-foot-2. Fennelly said that means alternative methods are necessary.

“We’re not a very big team, so it’s all about positioning, effort and doing all that little stuff,” Fennelly said. “That’s the hardest thing to do … but at this point, where it’s either win or go home, if you give up an extra rebound or something like that it could really cost you. The penalty for not doing what you’re capable of doing is pretty severe at this point.”

Iowa State won two consecutive games to close out the season, and has won four straight over Kansas, but senior guard Lindsey Wilson said playing Kansas less than a week after blowing them out won’t be easy. She said it’s her responsibility to keep the team focused on the task at hand.

“There’s a fine line going into the game confident and going into the game knowing we can beat them,” Wilson said. “We only beat them by two the first time and it came down to the wire at home. If we come to play, we can beat them, but if we don’t, it could end up being a close game.”

Wilson, who leads the team with 19 points per game, said the way the Cyclones start is critical. Iowa State jumped out to a 9-2 lead in the last meeting with three consecutive three-pointers by Mary Cofield, O’Neil and Wilson. Iowa State knocked down 11 shots from beyond the arc in the game.

Wilson, Holly Bordewyk and Erica Junod were part of back-to-back Big 12 tournament championship teams in 2000 and 2001. Even though the Cyclones have their lowest seed since the inception of the Big 12 six years ago, Wilson said the trio who were on the championship teams try to instill confidence in the rest of the squad.

“We know what it takes. We know it’s possible,” Wilson said. “Everybody goes down there and forgets what happened in the regular season. We’ve done it before, and there’s no reason we can’t do it again.”