Iowa State standout senior point guard Emily Ryan shows her appreciation for the fans on senior day after her team beat No. 14 Kansas State, 85-63, at Hilton Coliseum. Photo by Jacqueline Cordova.
AMES — The Hilton Coliseum clock read 1:15 and the scoreboard told the story of a much-needed senior day blowout triumph.
Iowa State’s lone senior — all-time assists leader Emily Ryan — strode to the bench amid cacophonous cheers.
The native Kansas ended her Cyclone homecourt career by flirting with a triple-double one last time in an emphatic 85-63 win Saturday over No. 14 Kansas State before 10,728 fans at Hilton Coliseum.
Then Ryan — who scored 17 points, dished out 10 assists, and grabbed seven rebounds — did a dance with her teammates before watching and listening to her poignant pre-recorded senior speech as the tears finally flowed as a watery testament to her rock-solid Cyclone career.
“Honestly, just a ton of gratitude is what has been going through my mind ever since the last buzzer (went) off,” said Ryan, whose teammate surprised her by festooning the locker room with balloons and streamers to help serve as a send-off for her last game in Hilton. “Just how grateful I am to have played here and to play for these coaches, and to have teammates like I do. I couldn’t be more grateful to be able to do it here in Hilton one more time and have my family in the stands, it was a really special (day).”
But while Ryan appreciated the celebration of her ongoing ISU career, she fully focused on ensuring her team (21-10, 12-6) would extend its season beyond next week’s Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City. The Cyclones entered Saturday on the NCAA Tournament bubble — a precarious perch they should no longer occupy.
“21-10, 12-6 in this league, no bad losses, a quality win today, I mean, that’s not my decision, but I think there should be no doubt now,” ISU head coach Bill Fennelly said.
Standout sophomore center Audi Crooks joined Ryan in notching a double-double with 36 points and 10 rebounds. Sophomore guard Kelsey Joens added 10 points, and sophomore guard/forward Addy Brown totaled nine points while grabbing 10 rebounds.
The Cyclones held the Wildcats (25-6, 13-5) to 33.3 percent shooting, outrebounded them, 47-to-31, and outscored them, 50-29, in the second half.
“They’re a really good team and we were able to come out on top, and just kind of showed that we belong here,” Brown said.
So Saturday served as less of an ending and more of a beginning for Ryan and all of the Cyclones, who won’t play until Thursday in Kansas City.
“I’m squeezing every bit out of this last ride that I can,” Ryan said.
She’s belonged at Iowa State ever since she stepped foot on campus five years ago. And fittingly, at one point in the game, she needed to swap out her blood-spackled No. 11 jersey for a No. 52 shirt before closing out the game with a fresh No. 11.
“If you wrote a story, like, this is how Emily Ryan’s career at Hilton should end, you wrote exactly what happened today,” Fennelly said. “And that never happens. She played well. The crowd was into the game. Her team played well. We beat a really good team. I mean, if you would have written this story before the game, people would be like, ‘Well, that’s really nice but it’s not gonna happen,’ and it did. And I thought the second half it was just one play after another after another, and she was the one that dictated the flow of the game.”
So did Crooks, who scored 14 of her 36 points in a third quarter the Cyclones won, 27-15. Crooks finished 14 of 18 from the field in her most dominant performance of the season.
“Audi did Audi things,” Ryan said of ISU’s leading scorer. “She is so good and for how good she is, I think it’s underappreciated.”
Ryan certainly left the floor Saturday feeling anything but undervalued. She said in her speech that she hoped her legacy would hinge on being a good teammate. Nothing more, nothing less.
So did she accomplish that goal?
“(She’s) the best,” Brown said. “Just everything she does. She leads by example and that’s what a true leader does. When you see your leader doing everything the right way, it’s really easy to trust them, and that’s something that we have. We have a lot of trust in her.”
