DENVER – Vanderbilt’s Chantelle Anderson scored off of lobs and scored in Cyclone mobs leading the Commodores to a 84-65 victory over Iowa State in a Midwest regional seimifinal Saturday at the Pepsi Center.

The victory advances the Commodores to the Elite Eight where they will take on Notre Dame Monday night.

On her way to a game high 34 points, Anderson also scored off of layups and after posting up in the lane.

She scored when she jabbed left and baby-hooked right. She scored when she jabbed right and baby-hooked left.

“Chantell was scoring regardless of who was on her,” Vanderbilt’s head coach Jim Foster said. “She’s a very intelligent basketball player.”

The 34 points is 13 points above Anderson’s average. Anderson, the nation’s leading shooter at 73 percent, finished 16 of 23 from the field.

“We just tried to run our offense and take what the defense gave us,” she said. “We’ve had a great inside outside game all year.”

Iowa State’s crop of zone defenses were stretched by three Commodores lining the perimeter, Anderson patrolling the paint and forward Zuzana Klimesova occupying the high post at the free-throw line.

Klimesova led Vanderbilt with eight assists while scoring 13 points. Positioning her at the free throw line, Vanderbilt was able to damage Iowa State’s matchup, 2-2-1, and box-and-1 zones.

“That was huge,” ISU point guard Lindsey Wilson said of Klimesova’s court awareness from the high post.

When she wasn’t dumping down passes to Anderson, Klimesova was finding open teammates on the perimeter – teammates like Ashley McElhiney.

With 3:15 to go in the first half and Vanderbilt ahead 31-25, the sophomore point guard hit a three-pointer from the top of the key.

Next trip down, McElhiney made a three from the left baseline, with stressed ISU guard Megan Taylor attempting to guard McElhiney on the baseline and forward Jenni Benningfield on the wing. Benningfield finished with seven assists and three points.

After ISU forward Tracy Gahan hit a baseline jumper of her own, McElhiney scored her third straight three-pointer from the top of the key with 30 seconds left in the half.

Vanderbilt ran to the locker room with a 40-27 lead. McElhiney had 11 points by halftime and finished with 23.

“We made three defensive mistakes,” ISU head coach Bill Fennelly said. His team was one pass behind, not only on that sequence, but all evening.

“They started double-teaming Chantell,” McElhiney said. “We made extra passes. I knocked it down.”

Vanderbilt shot 75 percent (6-8) from the three-point line in the first half and 56 percent for the game.

“[McElhiney] was the one we weren’t focusing on the most,” Taylor said.

“They were the hardest team we’ve had to guard all year,” Fennelly said. “When we did make defensive mistakes, they made us pay for it.”

The Commodores shot 56 percent from the field for the day. They improved to 12-0 in NCAA play when shooting better than 50 percent from the floor.

Of Vanderbilt’s 84 points, 81 of them came from four players. Guard/forward Jillian Danker accounted for the Commodores’ other 11 points.

Of Iowa State’s 65 points, 60 of them came from four players.

Center Angie Welle led Iowa State with 20 points while grabbing seven rebounds. Taylor led the Cyclones in rebounding with eight. She was 3-6 from the three-point line and ended the game with 13 points, the same point total that Wilson ended with.

Wilson led Iowa State with eight assists.

Forward Tracy Gahan shot 6 of 9 from the field, the best percentage from the floor for the Cyclones, and ended with 14 points while playing all 40 minutes.

At the end of the first 20 minutes, Chantelle Anderson only had 10 points. “In the second half, I worked harder for the ball,” Anderson said.

She may have worked harder, but with 13:15 left in the game, Welle, who had guarded Anderson for most of the night, picked up her fourth foul.

When Welle gets in foul trouble, “we have no chance,” Fennelly said.

From there, center Gintare Cipinyte and forward Kelly Cizek tried their hand at guarding Anderson, before Welle returned at the 11:49 mark.

The game ended just as it began – with Anderson scoring in the lane.