The Iowa State women’s basketball team ran its Big 12 record to 2-0 with an 83-68 victory over Oklahoma. ISU now is 13-2 overall and stands alone atop the Big 12 northern division after improving to a perfect 9-0 at home.

Just as they did in their conference opener against Missouri, the Cyclones struggled early, only scoring seven points in the game’s first 14 minutes.

Janel Grimm scored two baskets early, on her way to a season-high 25 points and Jayme Olsen converted a three-point play to take a 7-5 lead with 13:41 to go in the half. But then Oklahoma went on an 18-0 run to take a 23-7 lead with 5:54 to go before Iowa State called a timeout.

“We looked really slow out there,” Olsen said. “We certainly were not paying attention to details and we were doing a poor job of finding shooters.”

“I can’t explain the start, but we had to win this game with the schedule we have coming up,” Coach Bill Fennelly said. “It is odd to have seven points in the first 13 minutes and end up with 83. We could not make a shot and Oklahoma was playing with a lot of emotion.”

“The key was when we started pressing and when we went to four guards,” he said. “We told them to get the ball inside and then spot up for three’s.”

After the timeout the Cyclones went on a 12-0 run in just over two minutes to crawl within four with just under four minutes left.

Then with 2:34 until halftime, ISU’s Stacy Frese caught fire. The sophomore nailed three three-pointers and a free throw to give the Cyclones a 34-32 lead at the break.

“We started to move the ball real well and it gave me some open looks,” Frese said.

“We were forcing a lot. We weren’t moving the ball around and you can’t do that in the Big 12. Once we started getting the ball inside to Jayme and Janel it really started to open things up.”

“We did a nice job of getting her the ball,” Olsen said. “She is deadly and she made the plays when we needed to get us back into the game.”

“We lost control of Stacy Frese on three straight possessions,” Oklahoma Coach Sherri Coale said. “It gave them a lot of confidence.”

Iowa State dominated the second half, controlling a double digit lead for most of the stanza, but the scrappy Sooners wouldn’t go away, playing intense defense throughout.

“Free throws were a big difference in the second half,” Coale said. “Their rebounding was the big difference and that is something we have to improve on.”

The Cyclones went to the charity stripe 38 times during the game, including 30 times in the second half alone. They converted on 32 of the attempts for 84 percent, all were season highs.

Grimm made 12 of her 13 attempts from the line.

Iowa State also dominated the boards, outrebounding the Sooners 43-26, including 19 offensive rebounds.

Megan Taylor and Amanda Bartz both grabbed eight caroms, while Grimm and Olsen each had seven.

Last Wednesday, the Cyclones knocked off Missouri in the conference opener 58-55.

Frese scored a career high 24 points in the contest, while Grimm and Olsen had 13 and 10 apiece.

Missouri led at halftime 29-25 and led by as much as eight points, before Iowa State battled back to go ahead 40-39 with 9:58 remaining. Frese nailed two free throws with 26 seconds left to seal the victory.

“We’re not playing our best basketball, but we’ve been able to bounce back, but that may be a key late in the season on the road,” Olsen said. “We’ve got to pick it up or else we’re not going to win many games. We’ve got to turn it up and I have confidence that we’ll do just that.”

Five of Iowa State’s next seven games will be on the road, with a difficult game Jan. 20 at home against national power house Texas Tech.

“I’m excited to be 2-0 (in the Big 12), but I’m worried about what’s ahead,” Fennelly said.

“We need an ‘A’ game from all seven that we put on the court and right now we’re getting the ‘A’ game from three or four of them.”

“Nobody is winning on the road and if we can go into a hostile environment and win a few games you’ll be looking pretty good,” he said.

“Our next step is to beat Colorado or Kansas and we haven’t been able to do it in the past two years. When you beat one of those teams, people will notice.”