Ranked but still untested.

After winning its two exhibition games by an average score of 104-50, the 22nd-ranked Iowa State women’s basketball team cruised again in its season-opener Saturday night, crushing Southwest Texas State, 97-48 in front of 2,779 fans at Hilton Coliseum.

Megan Taylor led four Cyclones in double figures with 22 points, including three three-pointers. Every Cyclone on the roster scored as ISU drilled nine treys and held the Bobcats to 34.6 percent shooting.

“Great way to start, obviously,” ISU Coach Bill Fennelly said. “I was a little concerned about starting out for real and how our kids would react, but we played very well.

“It’s a long season and you’re not going to play great teams every night, but I just told our kids before the game that the short-term goal is to be 1-0 … and that’s where we are.”

Cyclone freshman center Angie Welle scored 14 points on 7-of-11 shooting. Junior college transfer Desiree Francis continued to wow the Hilton crowd with her quickness and tenacity, scoring 16 points, eight on free throws, and grabbing a team-high 14 rebounds for a double-double.

Freshman Kelly Cizek tallied 11 points and nine boards.

Junior point guard sensation Stacy Frese scored only eight points, including two treys, in 23 minutes of play, but led the Cyclones with four steals and six assists.

The 49-point margin of victory was the largest by an ISU team since a 106-43 win over Dordt on Jan. 6, 1976. It was the biggest season-opening margin since a 45-point win (77-32) over Southwest Missouri State in 1979.

ISU never trailed in the game and led by as many as 56 points on two occasions. After the Bobcats pulled within 7-5 early in the game, Taylor and freshman guard Tracy Gahan hit back-to-back three pointers to spark a 12-2 run that set the course of the game. The Cyclones led 55-21 at halftime after Francis made a put-back layup at the buzzer. ISU shot 54.3 percent in the first half and 44.3 percent for the game.

“I feel bad the score got out of hand the way it did,” Fennelly said. “I think Southwest Texas State played hard, and you never like to see that happen, but it just seemed like everybody we put in did something positive.”

If there was a negative for the Cyclones on Saturday, it came at the free throw line, where they went only 26-of-45 (57.8 percent).

Taylor, last season’s Big 12 Conference Freshman of the Year, said the Cyclones’ new post players are becoming more comfortable on both ends of the floor, and the team is more athletic than it was last season.

“You see people just jumping around everywhere,” Taylor said. “Everyone is just so excited to get out there and play — if they get a minute, or if they get 40 minutes.”

“The thing about this team is that everyone is a threat to score … I don’t think there’s really any way for a team to defend us, but we haven’t been challenged so we’re not sure how we’re going to do against better teams.”

The Cyclones don’t have to wait long for a challenge.

ISU hits the road to face in-state rival Iowa at 7 p.m Tuesday in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. It will be the Cyclones’ first real test of the season, and the six newcomers’ first taste of a hostile Division I environment.

The game will be a homecoming for Frese, who played for Iowa as a freshman during the 1995-96 season before transferring to ISU. Taking the Carver-Hawkeye floor as a visitor will be a strange experience, Frese said, but she is looking forward to it.

“I’m not dreading it,” she said. “I want to get out there and play.”

Fennelly said he told Frese that she should have an advantage at Iowa because of her familiarity with the surroundings.