Iowa State women’s basketball: Breaking down the 2014-15 schedule

Yesterday, the Iowa State women’s basketball schedule was completely unveiled for the 2014-15 season. Let’s break the entirety of it down.

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First, the non-conference slate is pretty lackluster. The season begins on November 4th with two exhibition games, and then three straight home games against USC Upstate, Drake, and Cincinnati. After going to Moraga, California, during Thanksgiving weekend to take on Wyoming and St. Mary’s, the Cyclones will have a home game against Stony Brook before going to Iowa City to take on the Hawkeyes.

The rest of the non-conference slate will be in Hilton Coliseum, closing out with Arkansas Pine-Bluff, Fairfield, and the Cyclone Challenge with Brown, UC Riverside, and Howard.

Obviously, the game against the Hawkeyes is really the only game of note here. Upsets happen and the trip to California for a couple of games could be interesting — the game against St. Mary’s is a true road game and the only one out of the state.

Next up is the Big 12 schedule, which runs from January 3rd through March 2nd. Basically, where’s Baylor, West Virginia, and Oklahoma State at? Luckily, the team stays away from playing the toughest opponents back-to-back. There’s two instances where the team has to be on the road in back-to-back games, and that’s January 13th and 17th against Baylor and Kansas State, respectively, then February 11th and 14th against Texas Tech and Oklahoma respectively.

Iowa State won’t have to face the Bears again after the first meeting until Saturday, February 28th at Hilton Coliseum. The game ends probably the toughest stretch for the team all season. Sandwiched between two games with Texas Tech are a road game at Oklahoma State on February 14th, a home game with Oklahoma on February 16th, and a road game against West Virginia on February 21st.

Overall, the schedule is very manageable and should favor the Cyclones to get back into the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

Here’s the full 2014-15 schedule (from Cyclones.com):