Walking into Hilton Coliseum on Tuesday afternoon, senior guard Nikki Moody knew it was one of the last times she would get to do so as a player.

And she wasn’t about to let the opportunity go to waste, either.

Moody finished the game with 16 points and nine assists, enough to give Iowa State (17-10, 8-8 Big 12) a much-needed 59-47 win against Texas Tech (15-13, 5-11 Big 12).

“It was certainly a game we needed coming down the stretch,” said ISU coach Bill Fennelly. “I though we played defensively really well. Offensively, a little shaky, but overall a very solid defensive effort we needed.”

Moody was just 10 assists shy of Iowa State’s all-time assist record coming into the game. The Dallas native finished with six in the first half and seemed on pace to break the record early in the second half.

“At halftime, Brynn [Williamson] told me I had five,” Moody said. “So I was just like I’m going to go out there and get five more.”

She kept racking up the assists in the second half, inching closer and closer to the record. But when she finally tied it with just less than four minutes left in the game, that assist turned out to be her last one of the night.

Moody and her team continued to pull ahead of Texas Tech in the final minutes and the senior soon found herself on the bench where she would stay for the remainder of the contest. The record, it seems, will have to wait until next time to be broken.

But even though she had been inching to the record all night, Moody said she had no idea where she was. But in the end, she said she has a bigger focus in mind.

“[The record] is just kind of right there, but either way I still have games to play,” Moody said.

Moody now sits at 719 total career assists, and is tied with former Cyclone Lyndsey Medders for the all-time record.

Medders, who was in attendance Tuesday, said she was just as anxious for Moody to break the record, and said she knows what this means for the program as a whole.

“I gave [Moody] a hug [after the game] and said ‘break the damn thing already’,” Medders said. “I want her to break it. It means that we’re winning games, it means that our team is playing well and it means that Iowa State basketball is in a good place.”

The record, which will likely be broken Saturday when the team hosts Baylor in its final home game of the year, wasn’t the only headline entering Tuesday’s game.The regular season matchup was one that some were calling a “must-win” for the Cyclones in their attempt to earn a bid to the NCAA tournament in March.

The Cyclones have been on the bubble lately in ESPN’s Bracketology, but ESPN analyst Charlie Creme put them back in the tournament as a No. 12 seed Tuesday afternoon. A loss to the Red Raiders, however, would almost certainly bump them out of the tournament.

A win against the Red Raiders keeps the Cyclones in the hunt for a first round bye in the conference tournament, but where exactly they’ll fall is still up in the air. With several teams tied in the middle of the standings, a single win or loss can make a big difference.

“Now you fall in the three through eight [seed] range,” Fennelly said. “Now you just kind of wait and see what happens tomorrow, and hopefully we can find a way to keep ourselves in that first round bye range if we can.”

The Cyclones have just two more games in the regular season, and could use every win they can get to ensure a bid to the “Big Dance” next month. But instead of looking ahead to the conference tournament, or even breaking a team record, senior Fallon Ellis said their only focus is on the next game.

“I think that’s all of our focus, just go out there and try to beat Baylor,” Ellis said. “I know we can do it. I believe in my team. I think we can go out there, and if we just play the way that we need to … I think we can go out there and definitely win.”