No. 19 Iowa State women tumble to fourth straight loss, 68-62, at Colorado

Not enough rebounds. Too many missed free throws. An inability to advance a 12-point first-half lead.

These key elements conspired to doom the 19th-ranked Iowa State women’s basketball team to its fourth consecutive loss Wednesday night at Colorado.

The final: Buffaloes 68, Cyclones 62.

The recurring theme: ISU (14-4, 2-4 Big 12) simply has no margin for error against anyone now that key starters Addy Brown and Arianna Jackson are out indefinitely with injuries.

“It’s defensive rebounding and free throw shooting that continue to be bad,” Cyclone head coach Bill Fennelly said on the Cyclone Radio Network. “And the attention to detail — they made three 3(-pointers) at the end of the shot clock or quarter on plays that we’ve practiced for two days, and, obviously, we didn’t teach it right.”

But a variety of things went right enough for ISU early. The Cyclones used a 9-0 run in the second quarter to build a 28-16 lead, but Colorado (12-6, 3-3) scored 13 of the game’s next 14 points to tie the score, 29-29, early in the third quarter. ISU went nearly six minutes without a field goal in that span as the Buffaloes’ defense collapsed on star center Audi Crooks — who entered the fourth quarter with just seven points. She scored 10 points in those final 10 minutes, but it wasn’t enough to avert another loss to an unranked, but hungry team that made the winning plays in critical moments of the game.

Crooks finished with 17 points, 15 rebounds, four blocked shots and two steals. Those final three numbers were each one off single-game career highs. The points number was 11 below her previous per-game average, though, as the 6-3 junior struggled to both receive passes and finish at the rim against physical double and triple team coverage.

“Coach (Fennelly) was saying after the game, ‘This can go one of two ways,’” Crooks said. “‘One, you can all go inside yourselves and think, poor me, poor me, and the team becomes ore of, you know, just 13 girls. Or we can stay with each other, lean on each other, and become stronger, and try to bounce back from this unfortunate stretch that we’re having.’”

Fennelly’s convinced — despite the debilitating losses of Brown and Jackson for the foreseeable future — his team will continue to try to respond with the latter mindset. Even as the losses pile up and the Cyclones tumble down the rankings, or even fall out of them entirely.

“I love our team,” Fennelly said. “I love everything about them. They’re really really good people. They care a lot. They work hard at what they do. They care about one another. I feel bad that we’re in this part. To be honest with you, as soon as we heard about Addy(’s injury), I knew this was coming. So now it’s just, how do you mitigate it? How do you stay the course? Like I tell people all the time, showing up is a skill. We’ve gotta keep showing up and we will.”

Sydney Harris added 16 points for the Cyclones on 4-for-8 3-point shooting. Jada Williams had nine points and Reese Beaty added eight despite battling an illness. Little-used backup guard Aili Tanke also gave ISU a huge boost by drilling a 3-pointer that tied the game, at 50-50, with 5:27 left, but those key elements mentioned above prevented the Cyclones from getting back on the winning track. ISU went 7-for-14 from the free-throw line and were outrebounded 46-to-33 overall and 18-to-8 on the offensive glass. Those shortfalls make winning difficult against anyone, anywhere — and now ISU must prepare for another daunting road test on Sunday at Oklahoma State (15-4, 4-2).

“I know our kids are gonna do the things they can,” Fennelly said. “And hopefully we’ll catch a break or two.”

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