AMES – After a week in Fort Myers, Florida, the No. 20 Iowa State women’s basketball team will return to Hilton Coliseum to face USC Upstate Tuesday.
In contrast to other students, the Cyclones busied their Thanksgiving break at the Elevance Health Women’s Fort Myers Tip-Off, playing two matches that, despite their score outcomes, both ended with great benefits.
Playing their first tournament game on Thanksgiving Day, the Cyclones had their second loss of the season against No. 4 South Carolina. Iowa State took its 76-36 loss with its heads held high as it used the loss as a learning opportunity for future games.
“I think we learned a lot of things,” forward Addy Brown said. “Probably just pay more attention to detail and kinda prepare. I think we kinda lacked that, and just knowing that we have a long way to go to be able to compete with some of the top teams. But I think we took away a lot of good things, so it definitely was a good game. We played really well.”
“I think we just needed to be a little bit tougher,” guard/forward Sydney Harris said. “They really got up in our grill and made us uncomfortable and when teams do that we should be able to expose them back and be able to just blow by them. But I think we were just stagnant and were not able to do that.”
Despite dwelling on the loss early on in the tournament, Iowa State head coach Bill Fennelly used the transition between games as a motivation builder and a learning lesson.
“It’s not going to turn around in two days, but you have to be willing to say something’s got to turn around like this is not acceptable,” Fennelly said. “It’s not a lack of one and two but it has to be production is acquainted with our preparation.”
Iowa State used a whiteboard to write game notes on the Friday between the games. However, instead of coaches, Fennelly had the players write down the changes and improvements they believed were necessary for the next game on the whiteboard provided in their reading room.
“I said write whatever you want to write, whatever you think you want to do in the game or we need to do,” Fennelly said. “So it could have been rebound more, or make a shot, whatever they wanted to write they had to put their name to it. When the game is over you need to be able to look at that and say that you did it, and I think they did.”
The second match of the tournament came as a success as Iowa State demolished Middle Tennessee, 75-59. Due to center Audi Crooks’ strength in the paint skills, she led the team with a high of 21 points. Defensively, Brown and guard Kenzie Hare took to the court with a combined total of 10 defensive rebounds, three blocks and two steals.
Harris became a reliant shooter as she made three out of her attempted five 3-point shots and succeeded in gaining nine overall points.
The Cyclones will continue their success, back in Ames as they face USC Upstate, which is coming from a two-game losing streak after a 72-64 loss against Bellarmine on Saturday.
The Spartans were led by redshirt freshman guard Cassie Gallagher, who contributed a team-high 14 points to their seventh loss of the season. She was followed by senior forward Rebekah Gordon, who played 20 minutes and gathered a team-high 10 rebounds and the team’s second-highest of 11 overall points.
“We have three weeks to finish,” Fennelly said. “We have been after this since June. We have three weeks of school, three weeks of practice and five games. There should not be anything else.”
Iowa State will face USC Upstate in Hilton Coliseum at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. The game will be live-streamed on ESPN+.
