St. Thomas women’s basketball coach Ruth Sinn knew there were going to be games like Wednesday night’s loss to the Iowa State Cyclones at Schoenecker Arena as the program continues transitioning to the Division I level.

To be exact, there have now been three of them, as the Tommies equaled their largest margin of defeat in the Division I era in an 85-44 loss to the Cyclones. The Tommies lost by 41 to South Dakota State on a pair of occasions last season.

They opened this season with a 25-point loss to Drake.

“If you look at our schedule, we’ve taken our schedule a step up this past year,” Sinn said. “It’s because we think we’re ready. Now, there’s moments in the game that you saw that maybe we’re not ready.

“But we want to learn and we want to grow. And I think our young ladies having the daringness to be able to find out what that next step is, and what we have to do, is going to help us in the long run. Now it’s the next step. How do we respond from this? All of these nonconference games are preparing us for the Summit League.”

Asked if she was concerned that such a one-sided loss could have a lingering affect on the team, Sinn said she hoped not.

“This is what we keep talking about,” she said. “One thing I give our girls so much credit for, their whole heart is in it. I really believe we have a special group as far as their connection to each other.

“A lot of them wouldn’t be here if they didn’t think they could make a difference and be a foundational member to what we’re trying to do here.”

The Tommies (3-4), who have lost three in a row after winning three straight, shot 23.7 percent for the game, including 15.8 percent in the first quarter, when they were outscored 23-6. Sinn liked the way the offense was working at the start of the game, but that was short-lived.

“All of a sudden that ball didn’t go in the hoop,” she said, “and we panicked a little bit. And we started to go out of character. That’s the key to the game — how you continue to stay true to what your identity is.”

The Cyclones (3-3) return only one starter from last season’s team that won the Big 12 conference tournament and were picked to finish sixth in the conference this season in the preseason coaches’ poll. They came into Wednesday’s game off of losses to Vanderbilt and Syracuse, suggesting the Tommies might be catching them at a good time.

But the young and inexperienced Cyclones simply had too much size, length and overall talent for the Tommies to compete with.

“I think size was a bit intimidating,” Tommies senior guard Jordyn Glynn said. “But we’re going to face teams all year that are bigger than us, so we have to be prepared for that.”

The Tommies came into the game taking an average of just under 24 3-point shots per game this season, while shooting 32 percent. They took 18 in the first half against the Cyclones and made only one. They finished 6 of 38 (15.8 percent) from beyond the arc for the game.

“I think we played aggressive, we just didn’t hit our shots,” said Tommies point guard Jade Hill. “And they executed very well, so I think that was the difference.”

Briefly

The Tommies will go to Ames the next two seasons to play the Cyclones.

The Tommies will host Wisconsin on December 13.