An almost entirely new Kansas Jayhawks team awaits the Cyclones on Thursday night in Hilton.

Iowa State’s women’s basketball team opens up conference play with an evening tip-off against the Jayhawks, who are 9-2 on the season, including a recent overtime loss on the road to St. John’s. The Jayhawks have 10 (10!) newcomers on their 2017-18 roster, including seven junior college or graduate transfers and three freshmen.

That amount of roster turnover is almost unprecedented in women’s basketball, and it can serve as both an advantage and disadvantage for opposing teams.

Coach Bill Fennelly said that the amount of new faces forced the Cyclones’ staff to disregard last year’s tape.

“We didn’t look at any of that, because it doesn’t do you any good,” Fennelly said. “It’s a completely different team.”

The Jayhawks’ leading contributor is junior guard Kylee Kopatich, who is averaging 15.4 points per game for a Kansas team that is dead last in the Big 12 in scoring offense following non-conference games. The Jayhawks rely on dribble penetration on offense and have hit only 28.4 percent of their 3-point attempts.

The defensive side of the ball is where Kansas makes its biggest impact. The Jayhawks allow the third-fewest points per game in the Big 12 at 56.5 and force opponents to shoot only 32.4 percent from the field on average. Kansas will look to slow the game down and make Iowa State use all of the shot clock, similar to an earlier game the Cyclones had with Northern Iowa.

The main test for Iowa State will be to find ways to get junior guard Bridget Carleton going. Carleton has had two straight sub-par shooting performances against UC Riverside and Nicholls State, and with how key she is to the Cyclones’ offensive game plan, Iowa State needs her to get back on track and hit difficult shots against a defense that will set out to limit her impact.

Carleton takes the attention she receives from defenses as a challenge, but don’t expect her to change anything she does on the court.

“It is what it is,” Carleton said. “I’ll just keep doing what I can and take what [the defense] gives me.”

One way the Cyclones may look to open up the floor for Carleton is by utilizing their post game when possible. The post play at Iowa State has been up and down to say the least this year, but junior college transfer Bride Kennedy-Hopoate has brought a different brand of basketball to Ames and has picked up her best performances in recent weeks.

The Australian has been a physical presence in the paint, battling for offensive rebounds and getting to the free throw line 17 times over the last two contests. The Cyclones will need her tenacity on both ends to set the tone and take control of the interior, something Iowa State has consistently struggled to accomplish.

Kennedy-Hopoate says that her physical play inside can open up the Cyclones’ offense.

“Not only is that good for us posts, but it opens it up for the guards too,” Kennedy-Hopoate said. “We draw in that defense, get a kick to the corner and we’ve got a three.”

One final interesting storyline will be how Iowa State’s newcomers handle their first test of Big 12 action. Their contributions are likely to be vital to any Cyclone tournament hopes, so there’s not any real wiggle room or time to adjust. The Cyclones face a crowded schedule that includes five road trips and nine games overall in the next 30 days.

Fennelly emphasized the lack of cupcakes in the Big 12 as a big change for the Cyclones newbies.

“There’s not a game in the middle that you think, ‘eh, we’re gonna win, if we play ok, we’ll win,’” Fennelly said. “There’s none of those left.”

“There’ll be some growing pains for sure.”