Fennelly is cautiously hopeful for ISU's postseason fate

Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly shuddered at the thought.

HIlton Coliseum serving as host site for first- and second- round NCAA women's basketball tournament games and the Cyclones not being part of it?

That's the stuff of Brittney Griner-sized nightmares.

“If our name doesn't show up (in the field), I hope my assistant runs into my office and get the sharp objects out of it,” Fennelly said last week - before his fourth-seeded team exited the Big 12 tournament Thursday with a 67-63 loss to fifth-seeded Kansas State in Kansas City. “And luckily the Sukup (Basketball Complex) is not a real tall building. There wouldn't be anything worse than that. Nothing.”

Fennelly, his staff and his players find out their postseason fate during Monday's 6 p.m. women's tournament selection show on ESPN.

Given the Big 12's status as the top RPI league in women's basketball - and ISU's 9-3 record down the stretch in the regular season - a sixth straight bid would seem secure.

But apparent security falls short of the Cyclones' usual locked-in situation this time of year, so Fennelly's cautiously optimistic.

Emphasis on the cautious part.

“As far as our team, I don't know,” Fennelly said of the Cyclones (18-12, 9-9, 47th in RPI) after the loss to the Wildcats. “Yeah, you want to think that you've done enough, and I'm not trying to avoid the question. I just - I don't feel comfortable. The committee does a phenomenal job. If we've done the things that I think we've done with our schedule in our league, then they'll put us in. If not, they won't. We'll live with that judgment, and I will be - I will tell you, I'll be by myself a lot ‘until (Monday night) because no one will want to be around me. ... I don't know. I hope it happens. I think - again, I hope it happens. We'll see what happens.”

There's really only one bona fide "bracketologist" for women's hoops, and that's ESPN's Charlie Creme.

He has ISU perched precariously on the bubble as one of the last four teams in the field.

His projection would make the Cyclones a No. 10 seed, matching up Saturday with seventh-seeded Green Bay at Hilton.

And it's likely Fennelly's well aware of this prediction.

He's a who's in, who's out pre-March Madness junkie - as a coach and a fan.

"Besides what I do every day for my job and my family, the NCAA tournament is what gets me up in the morning," Fennelly said last week. "It's on my practice card. It's all I think about. So it's not just our team. I love everything about it. And that's part of the reason I pay more attention to it than probably I should.”