Articles Tagged: Iowa State women’s basketball

On a night when Bill Fennelly stood at midcourt to be honored for being in his 30th season as Iowa State’s head women’s basketball coach, his team proceeded to shoot 30 percent from the field — and still beat Indiana State by 22 points.

Iowa State star Audi Crooks scored within 10 seconds. Her sharp-shooting Cyclone teammates drained their first four 3-point attempts. And so it went in No. 8 ISU’s women’s basketball season opener — a 96-56 drubbing of Chicago State.

Iowa State is No. 5 in men’s basketball, No. 8 in women’s basketball, and No. 9 in football. This isn’t an everyday or every-year thing in college sports.

Women’s basketball: Iowa State is No. 8 in the Associated Press preseason poll. South Carolina is No. 1; Iowa is among others receiving votes.

Audi Crooks is one of four returning sophomores who stayed in tune during last season’s surprising surge, and as long as fifth-year senior point guard Emily Ryan’s serving as the group’s conductor, the Iowa State women’s basketball team will continue to hit high notes throughout a 2024-25 season brimming with big expectations.

Women’s basketball: Iowa’s Lucy Olsen, Iowa State’s Audi Crooks earn 3rd-team preseason all-American honors from Lindy’s Magazine

Catching up with six WNBA players with Iowa ties, through games played Friday.

Former Iowa State women’s basketball star Bridget Carleton will head to France to play for Canada in her second Summer Olympics. The Minnesota Lynx starter can’t help but thank longtime Cyclones women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly, without whose tutelage she wouldn’t have reached the heights in the game she has.

Catching up with six WNBA players with Iowa ties, through games played Thursday.

Catching up with six WNBA players with Iowa ties, through games played Thursday.

Catching up with six WNBA players with Iowa ties, through games played Thursday.

Bill Fennelly often jokes about how long he’s been coaching women’s basketball. The self-deprecating riffs are laced with humor, but Fennelly’s longevity in the profession is no laughing matter. He’s entering his 30th season as Iowa State’s head coach and that experience has helped him deftly maneuver within the murky waters of the transfer portal, where potential prizes and pitfalls seem to lurk around every corner.

Longtime ISU head coach Bill Fennelly brought Stephanie Soares back as a graduate assistant, which allowed her to delve into coaching while also practicing with the team and rehabbing her knee. The fourth pick in the 2023 WNBA Draft by Washington, which traded her rights to Dallas for two draft picks, Soares, 24, signed with the Wings in February and recently started training camp with them.

Brooke Demetre hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 18 seconds left in overtime and Kiki Iriafen scored 11 of her career-high 41 points in OT, securing No. 2 Stanford a place in the Portland Regional with a thrilling 87-81 win over seventh-seeded Iowa State in the second round of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament on Sunday night.

Freshman Audi Crooks scored a career-high 40 points on 18-for-20 shooting in her sensational NCAA Tournament debut, and No. 7-seed Iowa State hit all the big shots in the second half to rally from 20 points down and beat 10th-seeded Maryland 93-86 on Friday night.