Iowa State women can't keep up with No. 9 TCU in 82-69 loss

AMES — TCU star post player Sedona Prince has scored 1,294 career points.

She entered Sunday’s matchup with Iowa State averaging a team-best 19.3 points per game.

And she scored zero while fouling out.

The Cyclones couldn’t take advantage of her unusually lean effort, though, and fell, 82-69, to the ninth-ranked Horned Frogs in a Big 12 women’s basketball game before a crowd of 10,331 at Hilton Coliseum.

“Our game plan was executed OK,” said ISU head coach Bill Fennelly, whose team fell to 15-9 overall and 6-5 in Big 12 play. “But I keep going back to the same thing. Their role players — or, I don’t even know what the term would be — their fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh players made some really big shots. We didn’t.”

ISU’s stars Addy Brown and Audi Crooks combined for 60 of the Cyclones’ 69 points. Brown went 11-for-16 from the field and 3-for-4 from 3-point range for 31 points while adding six rebounds and five assists. Crooks scored 29 points, but needed 26 shots to reach that number.

ISU’s other eight rotation players combined to go 2-for-9 from the field.

“Obviously, we’ve got to have some people step up and they’re more than capable,” said Brown, who’s scored 19 or more points in five of the past six games. “So we’re just waiting and believing in them and we’re just gonna continue to have the utmost confidence in them.”

Brown’s short jumper with 3:39 left pulled the Cyclones within seven, at 74-67, but the Horned Frogs (21-2, 9-1) responded with a pair of baskets from two of those aforementioned role players: Backup post Deasia Merrill and guard Agnes Emma-Nnopu. TCU also got 19 points in 21 minutes from guard Taylor Bigby (17.4 points per game) and 10 points from reserve guard Donovyn Hunter (5.3 points per game).

“These kids live in the gym,” Horned Frogs head coach Mark Campbell said. “We’ve got a special group that loves to work at their craft — and Taylor and Donovyn are two of those.”

But ISU showed fight, as usual. The Cyclones trailed by as many as 13 points in the first quarter, but chipped away and went into halftime down just one, at 37-36, after back guard Kelsey Joens’ buzzer-beating 3-point swish.

TCU, however, scored 10 of the first 14 points of the third quarter — including a pair of clutch 3-pointers from Bigsby. ISU then defaulted to catch-up mode and could never get within one possession of the lead.

“They just kept throwing punches and we put our hands up and prayed,” Crooks said. “That’s not gonna get you a ‘W.’”

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