Coming off of a road win over the No. 11 team in the nation, Kansas State, getting up for a team that is 0-10 in the Big 12 Conference might be a problem.

Or will it?

Not for the No. 12 ISU women’s basketball team when it travels to Lawrence, Kan. tonight for a showdown with the winless Jayhawks (4-18 overall).

“We’ve just got to be ready to go. Throw the records out the window,” ISU center Angie Welle said.

Something about the Cyclones brings out the best in Kansas. Last season, then No. 6 Iowa State fell in Lawrence 69-61, one of Kansas’ five conference wins.

“If they get up for any team, it’s gonna be us,” Welle said. “They’ve seemed to have our number the last couple of years, so we can use that for motivation.”

History hasn’t been kind to the Cyclones in Lawrence as they have won just twice in 22 tries there. The physical Jayhawk defense plays a critical role in keeping Iowa State down.

“They’re a very physical defensive team,” ISU head coach Bill Fennelly said. “They’ve always dictated the tempo of the game, and we’ve always struggled.”

Iowa State, 5-5 in the Big 12, 17-5 overall, is far from struggling right now. Led by the `Big Three’ of Lindsey Wilson, Tracy Gahan and Welle the Cyclones have reeled off three wins in a row.

Wilson is the team’s leading scorer with 20.0 points per game. Welle and Gahan add 19.9 and 15.0 points respectively. Welle also adds 10.3 and Gahan 7.3 rebounds per game.

“We’ve shown what we can do when we play together and when we play hard,” Gahan said.

Fennelly hopes to continue solid play on the road.

“You hope that after winning three in a row and winning two road games, you feel like you know what it takes to win on the road,” he said.

Winning on the road will be imperative for the Cyclones, who including the game at Kansas, play three of their final six games on the road.

“Where we are right now, we just have to keep getting better no matter who it is we play,” Gahan said. “We have to go in their with the same attitude we had going into Kansas State.”

Against the Wildcats, Iowa State hit six of its first seven three-pointers to jump out to a big lead and held off a couple rallies for 86-71 win.

That’s how other Big 12 teams have pounded the Jayhawks.

“The teams that have gone and played Kansas have done a good job of getting after them early,” Fennelly said. “That’s been their problem.”

Still Cyclone players stress that they don’t expect to blow out the Jayhawks, who are averaging only 50.1 points per game and haven’t scored more than 59 in the Big 12 this season.

“Going into the game, we’ve got to be focused,” Gahan said. “We can’t worry about what their record is or how many fans they have in the crowd. We just have to go out there and play our best.”

And the defeat last year can be used as an extra incentive.

“They beat us at their place last year, we’ve got to keep that in the back of our heads,” Welle said.

If the Cyclones win, it will continue their move to the top of the Big 12 standings.

After losing five of its first seven, Iowa State seems to be back on track after beating Kansas State.

“It was a good confidence booster for us, and it maybe put a little bit of fear in the rest of the conference,” Welle said. “But it was one game. We can’t live or die on that one game.”

Welle attributed the Cyclones’ early struggles to the tough Big 12 Conference, home to seven ranked teams, a toughness that she says maybe even the Cyclones overlooked.

“I don’t know if, me included, we as players were mentally prepared for how tough the conference is,” Welle said. “You can talk about it and talk about it, but I don’t think we actually realized it, and we ended up losing some games that way.”

Iowa State begins the home stretch of its regular-season schedule tonight at 7 p.m.

“These are definitely very winnable games for us, but we have to perform,” Welle said. “We take it day by day, game by game and it starts with Kansas.”