As the ISU women’s basketball team hits the final stretch of their conference season, it appears as though head coach Bill Fennelly may face his worst record since becoming head coach in 1988.

“I don’t worry about that. My job is to coach this team to the best of my ability,” Fennelly said. “I used to worry about stuff like that, but I’m too old to worry about that now.”

Currently, Fennelly’s worst season statistically was the 1996-97 season, his second year at Iowa State. That team finished 17-12, and 9-7 in the Big 12. In his first season, the overall record was 17-10, but the team went 5-9 in the conference.

This season, the Cyclones are 8-10 and 3-4 in the Big 12. They nearly moved their record to .500 after last week, but were unable to pull through in double overtime, falling to Baylor 95-83.

Fennelly attributes his team’s record against conference foes to the growing toughness of the Big 12, as well as some unexpected happenings during the offseason.

“This is one of the best conferences in the country. Everybody knows that,” Fennelly said.

“When you’re playing in this league, you’ve got to bring it every night. In six of the seven conference games we’ve played, we’ve been right in it.”

The Cyclones also had some injuries that set them back in the summer.

“We didn’t expect five of our top seven perimeter players to sit out the summer with injuries,” Fennelly said. “We didn’t expect to be as short on post players.”

Senior guard Lindsey Wilson was a part of two conference championship teams at Iowa State, and still likes her team’s chances for a successful season this year.

“We don’t think about the things that we haven’t accomplished this year. We’re just trying to look towards the future. We were 3-4 at this point last year,” Wilson said.

“Obviously, our record is not going to be as good as last year, but there are still things that can be accomplished. There are things that you have to keep working for, and if you don’t believe in them, then there is no point in coming to practice.”

With the clock ticking on the conference season, and the Big 12 and NCAA Tournaments drawing near, each game becomes that much more important to the Cyclones. Up next for the women is Oklahoma State, who come to Ames sitting in last place in the conference.

Fennelly said his team can not look past the Cowgirls (5-13, 1-6) or they could be in for a big disappointment.

“Our team has figured this out over time, but we are a team that needs to do it every day,” Fennelly said. “We’re not a team that can look weeks in advance — we’ve got to focus on the next game. Every time we’ve shown up and played hard and we’ve been in every game.”

Although not performing as well as some of the previous Cyclone squads, Wilson said this group is just as special, now that the players are all fitting more into their role on the team.

“This team is kind of more dynamic,” Wilson said. “It was a little difficult early on. Basically, the only person with the same role as last year is me, and even my role has changed, to being more of a leader.”

But the midpoint of the season has past, and players on the team are still learning their roles and how to contribute.

“I think it was really difficult because nobody knew exactly what they were supposed to do,” Wilson said.

“Erica Junod was hurt most of last year. [Lisa] Kriener was on the bench a lot of last season. It would be nice if everybody just automatically knew their role in November the way they do now. We just got to keep working at it.”