Kelsey Joens' rise fuels Iowa State women’s basketball team

AMES — Iowa State women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly’s put his program on the map.

Annual trips to the NCAA tournament are fully expected — as are occasional trips to the Sweet 16. So Fennelly and his staff are used to overcoming challenges. But he faced a uniquely challenging one this season when it came to finding a regular rotation and sharply defining all of his players’ roles.

“It’s been the hardest thing I’ve done, we’ve done, in maybe forever,” said Fennelly, whose surging Cyclones (21-10) will play Arizona State in Thursday’s 5:30 p.m. Big 12 tournament second round game at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.

Myriad factors nudged Fennelly and his staff to maintain a deep rotation. He needed to manage all-time assists leader Emily Ryan’s minutes most of the season because of health issues. He lost standout transfer Kenzie Hare to a hip injury early in the season. Stern defender Arianna Jackson suffered a foot injury and all of his other players who regularly log minutes would flash at times then struggle, making it difficult for a team-wide identity to form.

But one change helped that uncertainty dissipate: Inserting sophomore guard Kelsey Joens into the starting lineup.

“No one can debate how hard Kelsey Joens plays,” said Fennelly, whose team has won six of seven games since Joens became a starter. “And I think there was some comfort — and again, I don’t know, but she’s been here, so she’s in with Addy (Brown) and Audi (Crooks) and (Jackson), they’re in the same (class). So I think there was some comfort level there, as well, but she’s earned everything she’s gotten.”

Joens’ ability to augment the prolific production from ISU’s All-Big 12 trio of Brown (second team), Crooks (unanimous first team) and Ryan (honorable mention) has helped her team rescue its season and almost certainly lock up an NCAA tournament bid after Sunday’s 85-63 rout of No. 20 Kansas State.

Joens — a former standout at West Liberty and Iowa City High — is averaging 9.3 points and five rebounds as a starter this season. She’s shooting a torrid 51.8 percent from 3-point range (14 of 27) in that span and has notched a steal in six of those seven games.

“She’s just super-consistent as far as her preparation and her work ethic,” Ryan said recently of Joens.

She’s also, Ryan added, “super easy to cheer for.”

Why, precisely?

“I think that my teammates trust me,” Joens said before the win over the Wildcats. “Whatever they need, I’m willing to do and I think they know that.”

So does Fennelly, who considers his seventh-seeded team one of four or five that could win the Big 12 tournament.

“We’d have to play at a ridiculously high level, but that’s what March is about,” he said.

And Joens’ late-season surge fuels ISU’s hopes that it will be a memorable month — in Kansas City and beyond.

“You’d have a hard time telling me that she’s not one of the top couple reasons why this team has kind of found its groove a little bit,” Fennelly said. “And hopefully that will continue.”

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