Iowa State women seek fourth straight win Saturday against UCF at Hilton

AMES — Audi Crooks is the fourth Iowa State women’s basketball player to eclipse 2,000 points.

Ever.

And the star center from Algona did it in just 89 games — a Big 12 record.

So when Crooks, a junior, is coming off what her head coach, Bill Fennelly, described as one of the best games of her career in an 84-70 win at No. 21 Texas Tech, best to take heed.

“She was engaged from start to finish,” Fennelly said of Crooks’ 33-point, 12-rebound performance on Wednesday night in Lubbock. “She rebounded, she scored, she passed it, she went 7-for-7 from the free-throw line. No way you can disagree that was a complete Audi Crooks game for sure.”

Expect more such games to come, beginning with the resurgent Cyclones’ (17-5, 5-5 Big 12) matchup at 2 p.m. Saturday with UCF (10-10, 2-7) at Hilton Coliseum.

“I’m back,” Crooks said on the Cyclone Radio Network after the win over the Red Raiders.

But Fennelly’s convinced she never went anywhere despite a dip in production and efficiency when both Addy Brown and Arianna Jackson sat out for two weeks because of injuries. Jackson made her triumphant return 10 days ago and the Cyclones are 3-0 since she came back. Brown remains out indefinitely, Fennelly said, which makes a reenergized Crooks — who still leads the nation in scoring at 26.6 points per game — extra important.

“She was more vocal Wednesday night than she’d been since I’ve been here, in a positive way,” Fennelly said. “She was always talking in the huddles, in the timeouts.”

In other words, Crooks has fully emerged as a leader, combining her rare on-court gifts with keen communication skills that can positively impact the team beyond the stat sheet. But Crooks is not alone in that regard. Point guard Jada Williams stands beside her, as does Jackson and other Cyclones who are intent on restoring the program’s high expectations that flagged amid a five-game losing streak that now seems like a distant memory.

“Coach (Fennelly) tells us all the time, ‘Look in the mirror, notice what you did wrong, and don’t blame it on anyone else,’” said Williams, who’s averaging 26 points and 8 assists during ISU’s current three-game winning streak. “And I think we did a really good job of staying together, not letting the outside noise get to us, and I think we’re a group full of love.”

Not to mention ambition. That five-game skid served up lessons as long as the Cyclones were willing to absorb them. That’s what they’ve done — and that’s why being “back” doesn’t merely apply to Crooks. It describes the entire team as the calendar creeps toward February.

“Losing is contagious and that was a really hard point for us,” guard/forward Evangelia Paulk said. “But we really bonded and came together as a group. And before that, we were all super, super close. Like, we’re best friends. So going through a struggle like that definitely did bring us together more, though.”

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