KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Iowa State continuously battled back from multiple large deficits but ultimately dropped its Big 12 Tournament quarterfinal matchup with Baylor, 69-66 on Friday night. 

After being knocked out of the Big 12 Tournament, only time will tell if Iowa State gets into the NCAA Tournament come Selection Sunday. Iowa State head coach Bill Fennelly strongly believes that his team deserves to be in it.

“There’s no question our team belongs in the NCAA Tournament,” Fennelly said. “I’ll debate anyone on that if you want to. When we play, how we play, the schedule we play, the people we have on our team.”

On Friday, though, Iowa State went down 10-0 in two minutes and fell to a 16-2 deficit early. At that point, it seemed like nothing would go right for the Cyclones, and it looked like Baylor would run away with it, but the Cyclones came back with a huge response.

To end the first quarter, Iowa State went on a 9-0 run to bring it within five points, a solid spot to be in considering the deficit was once 14. A big part of that run was sophomore center Audi Crooks, who scored the first five points of the run.

“Honestly, we just showed a lot of grit and tenacity, you know, Baylor kind of tends to get into hot streaks,” Crooks said. “To our credit, we took a lot of pride in that. We didn’t fall down and continued to fight back and continued to chip away.”

The game seemed to repeat itself in the second quarter as Iowa State fell back into a 14-point deficit and yet again ended the second quarter on a 9-0 run. Regardless of the runs, it felt like Iowa State could not keep it going to gain and retain a lead. The Baylor defense stepped up when it got to those situations and the Cyclones struggled. 

“They got a home court advantage when you come here, you gotta weather the storm when they go on runs,” Baylor guard Sarah Andrews said. “We kind of just put it behind us when they went on a run and came back at them.”

Despite never having a lead in the first half, the Cyclones continued to claw back into it against the aggressive and high-pressure defense from the Bears and finally took their first lead after a 3 from sophomore guard Arianna Jackson. Jackson did not score in 35 minutes against Arizona State on Thursday, so her first bucket in the Big 12 Tournament was very timely.

“I think that was definitely a shift for us. Just really, really proud of her,” Crooks said. “I know that she was a little bit frustrated after [Thursday’s] game, so I’m happy to see one go in for her.”

The Cyclones were lucky to be playing the Bears so closely after the early deficit and knowing what happened the last time the two met up. In the regular season, the Cyclones lost by 15. This time, Iowa State didn’t let Baylor build that big of a lead at any point.

“Our approach to the game was a little bit different, was able to get established pretty early on inside, and I think that kind of opened things up for us a little bit,” Crooks said. “We were a lot more aggressive, I think, to the basket. Made a lot of hustle plays.”

Unfortunately for Iowa State, it could never build a lead larger than one point, and the stretch of impressive runs ran out late in the game. The fact that Iowa State made Baylor work so hard for the win was a success. 

“You get frustrated as a coach when you build leads and the teams come back,” Baylor head coach Nicki Collen said. “The reality is, everyone is good at this time of year, you knew they weren’t going to quit playing.”

The one Cyclone that continued to keep Iowa State in the game was Crooks. She scored in both of the 9-0 Iowa State runs and brought the game within two with a layup right before Jackson hit the 3 to take the lead.

Crooks finished the night with 32 points on 14-of-18 shooting, accounting for over half of the Cyclones’ points. It was clear that most of Baylor’s plan defensively was to shut down Crooks.

“Night in and night out teams bring whatever they can in the post defensive realm, just to try to be physical and try to make things difficult for me,” Crooks said. “That’s something that I definitely take a lot of pride handling.”

With the loss on Friday night against Baylor, the Cyclones’ fate is in the hands of destiny. On Mar. 16, the 68-team field for the NCAA Tournament will be announced, and Iowa State hopes it has a strong enough case to make it. Once again, Fennelly has a strong case for the Cyclones.

“I’m not in the room, but some of the teams I hear that they’re talking about, tell me when and where and we’ll show up and play you,” Fennelly said. “Again, I’m trying to be nice and politically correct.”