Rob Gray

Iowa State senior David Carr — and the -seeded 165-pounder at the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships, which run Thursday through Saturday in Tulsa, Okla. — seeks to reach the top of the national podium for the second time in his storied Cyclone career.

Iowa State women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly’s career had come full circle, as the surging fifth-seed Cyclones will face No. 12-seed Toledo — the first school that gave him a head coaching job 35 years ago — in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Iowa State is seeded sixth and will play either Pittsburgh or Mississippi State in the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Former Iowa City High standout Ashley Joens led Iowa State to a Big 12 tournament title in a 61-51 win over Texas.

Ashley Joens became the 14th player in NCAA women’s basketball history to score 3,000 points in Iowa State’s 82-72 Big 12 tournament semifinal win over No. 14 Oklahoma.

Prognosticators vary, but the general consensus has the Iowa State men’s basketball team anywhere from a No. 5 seed to a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament going into Selection Sunday.

The Iowa State Cyclones erased an eight-point halftime deficit in Saturday’s Big 12 tournament semifinal against No. 3 Kansas, but couldn’t sustain that energy and fell, 71-58, at the T-Mobile Center.

The once-struggling Iowa State men’s basketball team has beaten Baylor in back-to-back games after dropping six of its previous seven. The Cyclones advanced to the Big 12 tournament semifinals with a 78-72 win Thursday.

Iowa State women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly is convinced most of the league’s teams could potentially challenge for the Big 12 tournament title.

Gabe Kalscheur wasn’t surprised the revamped Iowa State men’s basketball team — which starts Big 12 tournament play at 11:30 a.m. Thursday against No. 10 Baylor — could come together and have success on a scale few viewed as possible.

Ashley Joens recorded her 62nd career double-double to help the No. 23-ranked Iowa State women’s basketball team lambast Texas Tech, 76-52, before a Hilton Coliseum Senior Day crowd of 11,858.

Adversity comes in a variety of forms — and the Iowa State men’s basketball team in the teeth of it as it prepares for Saturday’s regular-season finale at No. 7 Baylor.

Iowa State finished third last season after racking up plenty of dual meet wins that didn’t translate into tournament success. Cyclones head coach Kevin Dresser expects that to change Saturday and Sunday at the Big 12 Championships and beyond.

Ashley Joens — who rewrote the Iowa State women’s basketball record book — has become the program’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder by a wide margin and will play her last regular-season game at Hilton Coliseum on Saturday.

Iowa State men’s basketball coach T.J. Otzelberger announced Wednesday afternoon in a statement that Caleb Grill had been dismissed from the team “due to a failure to meet the program’s expectations.”