Iowa State went 1-2 this weekend, losing to Creighton 3-1 on Friday and 3-0 to Nebraska on Sunday while beating Wichita State 3-1 on Saturday. Here are three takeaways from the weekend.

Struggles continue against ranked teams

Iowa State currently sits with a 6-4 record after this weekend. Of those four losses, three of them have come to ranked opponents.

On the surface, that stat doesn’t appear worrisome, but the reality is that the Cyclones are winless in their last three matches against ranked opponents since knocking off No. 17 Northern Iowa on the road.

Two of those matches have been true road games against top-15 teams, while the other was the final leg of four games in three days. And it isn’t as if Iowa State has looked bad in all of these losses, either.

In fact, often times, the Cyclones will have some sort of lead in a given set but struggle to finish the job. That was the case against both Utah and Creighton, where Iowa State held early set leads but later lost them.

Sunday against Nebraska also started off in a similar fashion, as Iowa State held leads near the midway point of the first two sets before ultimately losing both. As a whole, the theme so far this season against ranked teams seems to be, Northern Iowa game notwithstanding, that Iowa State can compete with the best, but will struggle to finish.

If the Cyclones have aspirations of making it past the second round in this season’s NCAA Tournament, they’ll have to start find ways to start beating these higher-level teams.

A rare losing weekend

Non-conference tournaments are rarely, if ever, perfect. Most teams are still working out the kinks early in the season, and the fact of the matter is that it’s hard for teams to put together long winning streaks when you’re playing so frequently.

With that being said, Iowa Sate generally performs quite well in these early season tournaments. Before this weekend you’d have to go back to 2014 to find a weekend in non-conference play where Iowa State lost at least two games.

Granted, the three teams that the Cyclones played are all high-level teams, as previously stated. Nebraska will challenge for a national championship, while Creighton and Wichita State are NCAA Tournament-caliber teams.

With that being said, going 1-2 in a weekend likely won’t sit well with coach Christy Johnson-Lynch no matter how tough the competition was, and it’s probably reasonable to expect that Iowa State will come out next weekend with something to prove.

Coming home

What should help Iowa State is the ability to play in front of a friendly crowd for a change. After seven straight matches away from Hilton Coliseum, the Cyclones will be back in front of a home crowd this week for the Cyclone Classic.

The tournament will be Iowa State’s final three tests before the start of conference play. The Cyclones will play Wyoming, Iowa and Syracuse over a four-day stretch, and the team will likely be the favorite in all three games.

If Iowa State can pull off a sweep, it will likely provide a significant confidence boost going into conference play. The Cyclones will play Wyoming on Thursday, arch-rival Iowa on Friday and end the weekend Syracuse on Sunday. Of those teams, only Wyoming is receiving votes in the American Volleyball Coaches Association poll.