The journey starts now for the ISU women’s basketball team — the journey that will take the Cyclones four months, all the way to Selection Monday on March 16.

To start it off on the right foot and try to get one step closer to making its ninth-consecutive NCAA tournament, the ISU women’s basketball team will host the USC Upstate Spartans Nov. 16.

The Cyclones are tasked with adapting to full-fledged Division-I basketball for the first time in four seasons without two-time honorable mention All-American Hallie Christofferson. In its two exhibition wins against William Penn and Winona State, guard/forward Seanna Johnson said the team learned a lot about its identity.

“We learned that we’re a fundamental team,” Johnson said. “We have a variety of players who can do versatile things. What we’ve got to do is get our post players involved. We know they’re freshmen, but they’re capable of doing what they’re supposed to do.”

The Spartans, however, come to Ames with a very different team dynamic.

USC Upstate returns five starters from a 17-win squad last season that qualified for postseason play in the Women’s Basketball Invitational.

Unlike the Cyclones, the Spartans did not play any exhibition games, so Iowa State will have to wait and see how Upstate plays against Iowa on Nov. 14 before too much pre-game planning can be done.

“They play Iowa Friday night, so we’ll be scrambling late Friday night and early Saturday to get something together to see who their new kids are [and] did they change how they play,” said ISU coach Bill Fennelly.

Though Iowa State will be short on time to analyze that game tape when the coaches finally get ahold of it, Fennelly said his team won’t be as focused on Upstate’s strategy as it will be on its own.

“Unlike exhibitions, you really got to focus on what you do and be prepared for a little bit of everything and hope that they don’t come out playing some crazy defense or completely changed how they played last year,” Fennelly said. “We have some video from the postseason last year so we have an idea of the personnel, but it’s going to be hard.”

Upstate will also be facing a disadvantage in preparation, as Fennelly and the coaching staff have reinserted point guard Nikki Moody to the starting lineup after she sat out Iowa State’s two exhibition games as a part of her suspension.

Moody facilitated the ISU offense last season, dishing a team-high 163 assists at a clip of 5.26 per contest. With her back in the starting rotation, other guards – Jadda Buckley in particular – can slide back into their natural scoring roles.

“We were talking in the locker room [and] things are back to normal,” Buckley said. “She’s back at point so things are running smoothly. We’re all kind of back in our element, in our zone, so it’s really good.”

With all of the adjusting the Cyclones are having to do, more time to prepare for the first tipoff of the season would be welcomed. In spite of that, however, Fennelly thinks the time is right for the 2014-15 team to get the ball rolling.

“Now it’s this team’s turn…the kids on this team’s opportunity to see what their journey is going to be and what mark they can leave on Iowa State women’s basketball,” Fennelly said. “We do a lot of practicing and there’s nothing better than getting to play at Hilton…nothing better. They only get to do it so many times and the first one is Sunday afternoon.”