No. 11 Iowa State women aim to rebound from first loss Wednesday at Cincinnati

AMES — Iowa State head women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly has finally (maybe) seen it all when it comes to how opposing defenses choose to defend his star center, Audi Crooks.

No. 16 Baylor unveiled a previously unseen approach that helped beat the No. 11 Cyclones, 72-70, on Sunday at Hilton Coliseum. The Bears put two long and athletic players on Crooks for over half the game, making it difficult for her to receive an entry pass, let alone convert a highly contested shot. They then left point guard Jada Williams wide open on the perimeter, and even though she scored a career-high 28 points, there were just enough hesitant and disjointed moments to send ISU (14-1, 2-1) to its first loss of the season.

“That will be something we look at,” said Fennelly, whose team will try to rebound in Wednesday’s 5:30 p.m. game at Cincinnati (5-10, 0-3). “I don’t think anyone can do it like Baylor did it, with (its) length, but I’m sure we’ll see something similar to it down the road. We’ve seen everything else.”

What Fennelly would like to see most — besides an antidote to Baylor’s blueprint for curtailing Crooks’ production — is a return to form for versatile guard/forward Addy Brown. The 6-2 junior from Derby, Kan., is 3-for-17 from the field in the past two games and scored just two points on seven shots in the Baylor loss. But she’s still shooting a career-best 49.7 percent from the field this season and recorded her first career triple-double in a win over Norfolk State in mid-November.

“We want to her to be aggressive offensively and her nature is to pass first,” Fennelly said. “Which is great, but at the same time, we aren't gonna win many games with her scoring two points. Not against a team like (Baylor). So we’ve gotta find that balance of, ‘Yup, you can facilitate offense, but you’ve gotta hunt your own, too.’ So there (are) a lot of things that I think we can do.”

The good news for the Cyclones is any changes they need to make essentially amount to tweaks. Even with Sunday’s shortcomings in a variety of areas, ISU still had a chance to beat a top-20 team in the final seconds.

“We have a lot of takeaways from (the loss to the Bears),” Crooks said on Sunday. “We have a lo too film to go back and improve on, and come back even better.”

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