Iowa State women’s basketball aims for season sweep of red-hot Oklahoma State

AMES — Iowa State has competed in 20 NCAA tournaments, six Sweet 16s and two Elite Eights since Bill Fennelly took over the women’s basketball program in 1995.

One thing the No. 20 Cyclones had never done is avoid getting swept in the regular season by one or more Big 12 foes. Until now. And that’s not a trivial matter as ISU (17-7, 9-5) prepares for a tough four-game stretch to close its regular-season slate.

“It’s like I told them, it’s not gonna be something they’d probably put on their job resume down the road, but we’ve never had a team do it, and we’ve had some pretty good teams here,” said Fennelly, whose team faces Oklahoma State (19-7, 9-5) at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in Stillwater.

The Cowgirls have been very good lately, winning five straight games entering Wednesday’s matchup. They’re tied with ISU for third place in the Big 12 standings and seek to avoid a sweep of their own. The Cyclones won the first meeting, 69-64, in Ames.

“They’re skilled and they’re old,” Fennelly said of Oklahoma State. “And when you’re skilled and you’re old, you’ve got a chance to really grow into your team.”

ISU also conforms to that skilled and experienced model for success, and is coming off a week in which it knocked off Texas for the first time in the past eight meetings, and also beat Baylor on the road in double-overtime. Those two triumphs came on the heels of a three-game skid that essentially ended the Cyclones’ hopes of attaining a regular-season title.

“I think everyone’s energy changed and flipped and (we) realized we need to get back on pace of winning,” said ISU guard Denae Fritz, the reigning Big 12 freshman of the week. “I think we all just came in connected more than ever, realizing we needed to lean on each other.”

Fennelly said the first Sunday practice back after a humbling, 73-60, loss at West Virginia provided a glimpse of how his team would respond.

“We practiced at 2 the next afternoon,” Fennelly said. “We moved it up because everyone wanted to watch the Super Bowl. (Point guard) Emily Ryan’s a big Chiefs fan, so I had to make sure she could watch Patrick Mahomes play.

“It wasn’t anything crazy. It wasn’t long at all, but you could just tell. I’ve done this long enough that you can just tell when a group is engaged and they show up. They weren’t feeling sorry for themselves. It was like, ‘Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do,’ and they did it.”

The tougher task hinges on keeping up. And even though not being swept by any team in Big 12 play for the first time won’t go on any ISU’s player’s job resume, as Fennelly noted, it nonetheless has a deep impact on the Cyclones’ postseason prospects as well as the team’s psyche.

“No team has ever done that here,” said ISU standout guard/forward Ashley Joens, who Monday was named the conference player of the week for the 13th time in her career. “So just to be able to do that — I mean, not many people will know that we did that, but we know we did it. We can use that (for) confidence and help motivate us to keep moving forward.”

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