The Iowa State women’s basketball team ran the gamut of emotions in Saturday night’s 112-79 pasting of Baylor at Hilton Coliseum.

There was jubilation, like when Stacy Frese hit Angie Welle in stride with a behind the back pass to extend Iowa State’s lead to 25 at 61-36.

There was sadness, like at the conclusion of the game when seniors Stacy Frese, Monica Huelman and Desiree Francis said good-bye to the Hilton Coliseum fans in perhaps their final home game with touching speeches.

And there was disappointment, like when the team learned that Francis, who has been coming on strong of late, had broken her left hand early in the second half and could be out for the duration of the season.

“With the exception of Des, this couldn’t have been a better night for our seniors to go out,” ISU head coach Bill Fennelly said.

All of this prior to the biggest game of the year. The Cyclones will travel to Austin, Texas to take on the Longhorns with the fate of the conference in their hands.

If they win, the first title in ISU history is theirs. If not, the team will have a week to think about their missed opportunities before the Big 12 Tournament commences.

Lost in the sea of emotion was an unbelievable shooting exhibition put on by the Cyclones.

They hit on 16-22 three-pointers, and shot a season-high 66.7 percent from the field overall.

Angie Welle led the barrage with a career-high 28 points, accomplished on a school-record 10-10 night from the field.

She came off the bench because Huelman was given the start.

“I told Angie that if she kept playing like that she wasn’t going to get another start. She really played well,” Fennelly said.

“I had a lot of open shots, and it really helps that they were smaller than we were,” Welle said.

Also on target for the Cyclones were Megan Taylor and Frese.

Taylor was 7-10 overall from the field, and hit six for seven from three-point range. She ended with 22 points on the night.

Frese, meanwhile, nailed 3-5 from behind the arc en route to 17 points.

The superlatives for Iowa State don’t stop there. As a team, they set school records for assists with 29 (Tracy Gahan led the way with nine) and for points in a regulation game with 112.

Iowa State jumped out to an early 11-2 lead and never looked back.

Baylor at one point had the lead down to three at 22-19, while the largest advantage was 46, at 106-60.

Talk after the game immediately turned to Francis and the impending game with the Longhorns.

Fennelly said there is still hope that Francis could return at some point.

“We’re hoping that we can set her up with a splint or something, but it really depends on how bad the break is,” Fennelly said.

Compensating for the loss of the senior forward will not be easy according to Fennelly.

“We have to replace 14 points and six rebounds in about 25 minutes. We don’t have one person that we can just plug in, so the way I look at it, we need seven people to get one more basket, six people to get one more rebound and a bunch of people to get those minutes,” Fennelly said.

The game against Texas is a major source of concern for the Cyclones.

“Texas is a very good team, but so are we. The players think we can go down there and win, and why not?” Fennelly said.

The role of underdog has not been a familiar one for Iowa State this year, but Fennelly hopes the Cyclones embrace it.

“It kind of reminds me of the Connecticut game in the tournament last year. I don’t want to compare Texas to UCONN, but it’s the same kind of thing where nobody is going to give us much of a chance to win. But we’ll go down there and play hard and see what happens,” Fennelly said.

A win in Austin could be important for the Cyclones to be selected to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, a goal that Iowa State has had all year.

“I was looking today and I thought about 20 teams had a legitimate shot to host. We’re at a point where we can’t say we’ve got it, but we’re not out of it either,” Fennelly said. “But all great rock bands have an encore, and we’re hoping to give our seniors an encore this season.”