South Carolina Gamecocks guard Tessa Johnson (5) drives to the basket as Iowa State Cyclones guard Arianna Jackson (2) guards her during the third quarter of a Fort Myers Tip-Off Island Division game at Suncoast Credit Union Arena in Fort Myers, Fla., on Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024.
AMES — Iowa State head coach Bill Fennelly heard the buzz, looked at his phone’s screen, and smiled.
A timely text had arrived from former Cyclone and Cedar Rapids Washington star Stacy Frese shortly after No. 18 ISU suffered a 76-36 loss a day after Thanksgiving to third-ranked South Carolina — and it put the setback in perspective.
“(She) basically reminded me there was a game that she played in that we scored nine points in a half,” said Fennelly, whose team (8-2) will face another challenging task in Wednesday’s 8 p.m. (FS1) Cy-Hawk game at No. 21 Iowa. “And, you know, that team turned out pretty well.”
Frese helped guide the 1998-99 Cyclones to the Elite Eight and also played in the Sweet 16 the following season. Fennelly said she’s one of his most frequent texters, offering encouragement after tough losses and kudos after big wins.
“Every time, what she says kind of makes sense — and she’s lived it,” said Fennelly, whose team hasn’t won at Carver-Hawkeye Arena since 2006. “She’s lived the good and the bad, and luckily for her, most of it was good, and luckily for us, when she was here, most of it was good.”
The “bad” outcome against South Carolina last month produced a vigorous response from the Cyclones, who have won the next three games by an average of 33 points. So ISU will enter Wednesday’s matchup against the Hawkeyes (8-1) with restored confidence, but the Cyclones still know what they’re up against.
“Definitely a tough environment,” ISU sophomore guard Arianna Jackson said. “It’s a tough game. It’s an in-state game, so there’s gonna be a lot of excitement. Just got to go in there prepared and ready to go.”
The Cyclones led Iowa, 55-54, early in the fourth quarter in last season’s Cy-Hawk game before Caitlin Clark and Kate Martin took over to secure a 67-58 outcome. But ISU’s young team matured significantly in that setback and eventually defied the odds by producing the program’s third straight 20-plus win season.
“We learned we had a lot of fight as a team,” said sophomore forward Addy Brown who notched 14 points and 12 rebounds in that game. “Going into it, we didn’t have a lot of experience and our point guard (Emily Ryan) wasn’t playing. All the hype was around them, so it was a really fun game just to see what we were made of.”
The Cyclones are largely made of the same stuff this season, as the nucleus of that team returned. And they’ll have to bring even more “fight” to Carver-Hawkeye this time— a place they haven’t won since eight months before the first iPhone debuted.
“It’s fun, it’s all part of it, and it would be big for us (to win),” Fennelly said. “Our team’s played a really, really difficult schedule, and we still have some tough ones ahead of us, but hopefully we’re a little more ready for this than we were earlier in the year.”
So the South Carolina game’s relegated to rear view-mirror status, even as its lessons helped ISU navigate the route forward.
“You can be humbled quickly, and that was a very humbling experience for all of us,” Fennelly said. “But the thing I try to tell all of our players is, it’s one game, it’s 40 minutes, (and) they’re gonna shut the scoreboard off. I (tell the team), ‘Learn the lessons, leave the event.’ If you lost a game and you were embarrassed, then take your medicine and move on, but that should not dictate how hard you work, how you view your teammates, how you treat people. If they take away your self-respect and your will — now you’ve got a problem. But if it’s just, hey, you can’t rebound, you can’t score, you can’t guard? That’s what practice is for.”
