AMES — Kristin Scott’s jumper from the free throw line late in the second quarter of Iowa State’s 105-66 blowout of Texas Tech hit the rim six or seven times but somehow still found a way to fall through the net.
That’s been the story as of late for the sophomore out of Kasson, Minn. She just can’t seem to miss.
Tuesday night inside of Hilton Coliseum was no different. Scott finished with 22 points, five rebounds and three steals in 24 minutes.
Though Bridget Carleton led the team in scoring with 27, all eyes seemed to be on Scott.
“She’s such a talented kid,” coach Bill Fennelly said after the win. “To shoot the ball with that kind of confidence two games in a row is really special. We’ve said all along if you put our team out and have a shooting contest and the head coach got the first pick, that draft is over. Kristin Scott is my pick.”
A lot of those points came without Carleton on the floor as the senior played just 11 minutes in the first half.
“We haven’t been in that position a lot” Fennelly said. “You’re sitting there watching the score and seeing how we’re doing. We take her out and your sitting there in my head, I pick numbers on when we’re going to call timeout and when we’re going to put her back in. You don’t want her to sit, but when the kids [on the floor] are playing well it happens. It’s a credit to those kids.”
This could be what Iowa State fans will be in store for when next season rolls around. As Carleton will be graduating, it was known that there would be a big void without her on the floor for the Cyclones. Scott might be the one to fill it.
Fennelly isn’t looking ahead to next year, at all.
“I can’t think about next year,” Fennelly said. “There’s some talented [younger] kids, but we have the best player in the league on our team. When you take that off your team, I will say this, ‘I won’t be nearly as good of a coach then as I am right now. It’ll change. Twenty-one is really special.”
Tuesday was also Space Jam night at Hilton and with classes being cancelled on campus Wednesday, the Coliseum saw the largest contingent of students it has seen all year.
“They cheer a lot more on defense,” Carleton said. “It adds just that much more fun to the game. I hope they had fun and hopefully they enjoyed themselves to come back more.”
With her performance on Tuesday, Carleton moved from sixth to fourth all-time on the Iowa State career scoring list, passing both Tonya Burns and Jayme Olson.
Now with 1,814 career points, Carleton needs 43 points to take possession of third place from Megan Taylor.
“To be included in all the great players that have been there is a huge honor,” Carleton said. “There are some really good players that have been on some really good teams here and just to be in on that conversation is really special.”
The team also improved to 6-3 on the year in Big 12 play, which is good enough to hold a tie with West Virginia for third halfway through the season.
Though Iowa State wants those three losses back, the mark is much better than its 3-6 start to the conference season last year.
“We’re 6-3,” Fennelly said. “Every coach is going to say they want this one back or that one back, but if you would have said at the beginning of the year that we’d be 6-3, I would have taken it. Obviously, you want to win them all, but we’re in a good spot. We’re in a spot where we’re battling with people around us. It’s going to be a log jam for second, third, fourth, and fifth place. It will be fun to go to February and see what we can do.”
Iowa State’s next game is a road matchup against Kansas State on Saturday – a team they defeated by 38 points when the two matched up earlier this season at Hilton.
| Big 12 Women’s Basketball Standings | ||||
| Position | Team | Overall | Conference | GB |
| 1 | Baylor | 17-1 | 7-0 | – |
| 2 | Texas | 17-4 | 7-2 | 1.0 |
| 3 | W. Virginia | 15-5 | 6-3 | 2.0 |
| 4 | Iowa State | 16-5 | 6-3 | 2.0 |
| 5 | K-State | 13-7 | 4-4 | 3.5 |
| 6 | TCU | 14-5 | 4-4 | 3.5 |
| 7 | OK State | 12-6 | 3-4 | 4.0 |
| 8 | Oklahoma | 5-13 | 1-6 | 6.0 |
| 9 | Kansas | 11-7 | 1-6 | 6.0 |
| 10 | Texas Tech | 10-10 | 1-8 | 6.5 |
