NCAA women’s basketball tournament berth never gets old at Iowa State

AMES — “It never gets old.”

Every time the Iowa State women’s basketball team makes the NCAA tournament, those words are spoken by their head coach, Bill Fennelly.

Then he smiles.

“It’s like Christmas, man,” said Fennelly, whose third-seeded Cyclones face No. 15-seed UT-Arlington in Friday’s 9 p.m. first-round game at Hilton Coliseum. “This is the best thing ever.”

Fennelly and his staff are busily assembling a scouting report on the Mavericks (20-7), who feature a literal star in 6-foot-2 forward Starr Jacobs. The former junior college All-American averages 21.1 points and shoots 54.7 percent from the field. She also averages 6.6 rebounds and 2.3 steals. The latter stat — along with turnovers forced — is one of the first Fennelly looks at when breaking down a new opponent.

“And then the final thing is you’ve got to watch video now,” Fennelly said. “Because they are new and you just haven't seen them.”

The 10th-ranked Cyclones (26-6) know what type of team they don’t want to see. That’s one with elite quickness, pressure defense and long, physical post players.

All three of the teams — Texas, Baylor and LSU — that have beaten ISU this season fit that bill.

And the No. 6-ranked Longhorns topped the Cyclones for the third time this season in Saturday’s Big 12 tournament semifinals in Kansas City, but needed overtime to move on and eventually topple Baylor for the tournament title.

Call that progress for ISU, which matched Texas blow for blow after suffering a pair of blowout losses in the regular season.

“Yeah, I think just our toughness in that game,” said Cyclones senior star Ashley Joens, who scored 33 points in the loss to the Longhorns. “It’s March. Every team’s gonna come ready to go, so you just have to be extra competitive, extra tough. Games get physical and you just have to hang in there and keep fighting.”

Especially this month, as fresh challenges emerge.

Fennelly has guided ISU to all 20 of its NCAA tournament berths in his 27 seasons in Ames and each one feels like a new beginning, not old hat. Hence his oft-deployed saying.

“I told our kids, everyone’s like, ‘Does it ever get old?’” Fennelly said. “Well, there’s a lot of kids sitting up there that haven’t had this experience at home. They don’t do it 20 times. They might do it once. Ashley Joens is gonna do it four times. That’s great. So it is why you do what you do.”

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