A weekend of learning is what Iowa State had in Las Vegas.

The Cyclones lost to Vanderbilt and Syracuse but took home important information about themselves and know they have work to do.

“They were both really good teams,” Addy Brown said. “It was a good all-around roster for both teams and I think it’ll help us here in the next few weeks.”

Getting in games against tougher teams such as Vanderbilt and Syracuse were early Power Five tests for Iowa State. The Big 12 portion of the schedule is approaching fast, as is a date with Iowa.

“It’s really important, especially getting ready to go into conference play, and of course Iowa as well,” Brown said.

The Cyclones hung around and kept things close in both games but found difficulty finishing the fourth quarter.

Iowa State head coach Bill Fennelly said that this could be due to many of the players for Iowa State being freshmen.

“We’re just trying to create images and situations that hopefully they’ll build on,” Fennelly said. “They’re used to playing 32-minute high school games. Our games are 40 minutes. Maybe we have to work on that a little more.”

Brown added the energy of the team does seem to fade at times, especially when the opposition is making shots and Iowa State is not.

“Sometimes our energy gets kind of low in those situations,” Brown said. “The key for us is just keeping good energy up and staying together.”

Arianna Jackson said the team did well moving the ball against the zone defenses Vanderbilt and Syracuse used. She added that getting to the right spots is important since being in the wrong position could result in turnovers.

“Being a young team, consistency is one thing we need to work on,” Jackson said. “We really need to just put our game together and make it a full game instead of one or two quarters.”

Iowa State has been sporadic this season in terms of consistency from quarter to quarter.

Scoring runs and droughts seem to hit the Cyclones at different parts of every game they have been in.

“The consistency part of it is not just your performance but everything,” Fennelly said. “When things aren’t going well you’ve got to do more, you can’t do less. That’s what we’re trying to instill in all of them.”