Moody hopes to assist ISU to a win against Kansas State

AMES - Iowa State's Nikki Moody started her freshman season in the running for the top point guard spot.

Soon thereafter, she was thrust squarely into the fire as the Cyclones‘ catalyst - and the results, predictably, have been mixed.

“I've said this to everyone we've ever recruited: Playing point guard is the best position at Iowa State,” said ISU Coach Bill Fennelly, whose team (10-7, 1-5) returns to the court in Wednesday night's game at Kansas State (13-5, 4-2). “It's also the worst. I demand a lot of those people, I give them a lot of freedom, but we want someone who plays the position the way it's been played here in the past and wants to put her name and her face on that wall.”

That wall - a shrine of sorts to great Cyclones of the past, many of whom were point guards - is situated in the Sukup Practice Facility.

Moody, just 16 games into her college career, knows it well.

“I hope that I'll make it on that wall,” she said. “But I'm not sure yet.”

That's partly because her ISU story hasn't even reached the end of the first chapter.

She's fast, skilled and fearless, but said she sometimes struggles with decision making.

Cleaning up the latter comes with experience - and requires thick skin.

“I have to know I'm going to make mistakes and I'm going to be yelled at,” said Moody, who ranks sixth in the Big 12 in assists per game at 4.65. “He's going to be hard on me. So when I come out, I expect it - I expect to get yelled at, the criticism. When I go back in I just say, ‘That happened before, now I need to go back out there and change it.'”

So far, improvement has been steady, with a few hiccups.

Moody produced one of her best Big 12 efforts in Sunday's win over Texas Tech, distributing seven assists to two turnovers.

With another solid performance, she could help the Cyclones to their second straight win on the heels of the program's first five-game losing streak since 1994-95.

“You get a lot of credit when you're the point guard and things go well,” Fennelly said. “You get a lot of blame when it doesn't.”