Bill Fennelly finally got what he wanted.

After two exhibition wins and regular season victories at Marquette and against DePaul, the ISU women’s basketball head coach got his team to play “Iowa State basketball.”

The result was a 87-74 victory Friday over Mississippi State in the Championship game of the Coaches Versus Cancer Classic in Ames.

“I just wrote on the [locker room blackboard] play Iowa State basketball for 40 minutes,” Fennelly said. “We hadn’t done that yet, and I thought we did that [Friday].”

As usual, the Cyclones’ `Big Three’ provided the bulk of the scoring, with senior center Angie Welle setting a career-high with 29 points on 13-of-17 shooting. Senior guard Tracy Gahan, who was named the tournament’s most valuable player, scored 22 points and grabbed nine rebounds.

Junior guard Lindsey Wilson continued her solid play, scoring 16 points while dishing out eight assists.

“Tracy getting the MVP was nice. She’s someone who has kind of stood in the background of this program for awhile,” Fennelly said. “And I think the other thing – from a game-planning stand point – Angie Welle was incredible.”

It wasn’t just the stars that stepped up. Freshman guard Tracy Paustian, from Davenport West, nailed three three-pointers for nine points, had three assists and no turnovers.

She was also involved in a key play that helped Iowa State put the Bulldogs away.

With No. 6 Iowa State (3-0) protecting a 70-57 lead, Paustian knocked the ball away from MSU freshman guard Tan White. Paustian dove to the Hilton Coliseum floor and pushed the ball to Wilson who quickly flicked the ball to a streaking Gahan for an easy lay-up.

The play sent the 7,873 fans in attendance into a frenzy.

“That play was big because it got the crowd into it,” Wilson said.

Fennelly also took notice of Paustian’s efforts.

“She gave us a little life off the bench,” Fennelly said. “That’s what a bench player ideally is supposed to do.”

The Cyclones are looking for players to step up in the absence of guard Erica Junod, who tore her anterior cruciate ligament earlier in the month.

Paustian looks to be a solid replacement for Junod’s minutes.

Another aspect of the game that pleased Fennelly was the team’s defense. The Cyclones shut down Mississippi State’s superb junior forward LaToya Thomas, who had been averaging 29.0 points-per game and 11 rebounds.

Hounded by Welle, Thomas was held to 10 points on 5-of-15 shooting.

“We knew how good of a player [Thomas] was coming in,” Gahan said. “That was definitely the focus of our defense.”

A defense that was smoked by DePaul on Wednesday; the Blue Demons’ Lenae Williams dropped 41 points on the Cyclones, the most by an ISU opponent since Drake’s Jan Jensen scored 41 in 1990.

The Cyclones escaped with a 79-75 win.

“We didn’t do the things we normally do,” Fennelly said, explaining that many of Williams points came while she had open looks at the basket.

“Our sense of purpose wasn’t there like it was [Friday],” Fennelly added.

Now that the Cyclones feel they have shored up some of their problems, they will travel to Creighton on Tuesday, a team that fell one shot shy of shocking Iowa State in Ames last season. The Cyclones held on for a 74-71 win.

Iowa State has since moved its home winning streak to 22 games, and looks like it’s back to playing vintage Cyclone basketball.

“We were waiting until we were hitting on all cylinders,” Wilson said.

With road games at Creighton, Drake and Northwestern coming up, the Iowa State women will get a chance to see how well those cylinders are working.