The regular season is done, with Iowa State finishing the season 16-9 and 12-6 in the Big 12.

Now, the Cyclones will turn to the Big 12 Tournament taking place Thursday through Sunday, with their first game happening at 10:30 a.m. Friday against the Texas Longhorns — the only team that swept Iowa State in the regular season.

Head Coach Bill Fennelly said to prepare, they have looked at both games Iowa State played against Texas and also Texas’ more recent games to see what players are playing the most to see if the Longhorns have changed anything.

“Both the games that we played against them were eerily the same in how they were played,” Fennelly said. “Certainly have to do a lot to improve to have a chance on Friday morning.”

Fennelly said some of the biggest problems for Iowa State was junior forward Charli Collier and how Texas plays defense, which is more than just physicality.

He said what the Longhorns do that makes it so tough is how committed to the defense they are.

“They’re gonna full-court press you, they’re gonna get up into you,” Fennelly said. “… experienced kids that are committed to defending in a full court, physical way.”

Fennelly added that it’s mainly Texas’ disruptive nature that you don’t really see in the women’s game that makes it so tough.

Texas has been able to hold junior guard Ashley Joens to under 20 points during both games and along with needing her to play at the top of her game, Fennelly said the freshmen will have a key role to the success of the team this weekend.

Iowa State played Texas toward the beginning of its Big 12 slate, and Fennelly said he has seen improvement from the four freshmen throughout the season, mainly in their ability to handle disappointment and loss.

“I think the biggest thing is their ability to move to the next day, not make excuses and want to get better,” Fennelly said. “And hopefully we’ll see that come tournament time.”

With them being freshmen, four of the players on the team have never been to or played in the Big 12 Tournament before.

Joens, a player who has been there multiple times in her career, said she told the freshmen it’s just like every other game but just on a bigger stage.

“We’ve played Texas before we just need to know that they beat us the first two times and that should help us motivate us for this next one and we just need to go out there and play like it’s every other game we’ve played so far,” Joens said.

Senior guard Madi Wise said the last time the Cyclones played Texas, they played timid and a little scared and their shots weren’t falling, so if they clean some of those things up and play their best, she said the game will hopefully play in their favor.

Wise also said the team has grown since the last time Iowa State played the Longhorns.

“We’ve grown a lot,” Wise said. “I think just being able to work on ourselves throughout the last few days helped us a lot too as well as the games in between.”

The Cyclones take on the Longhorns at 10:30 a.m. Friday at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. The game will be available to watch on ESPNU.