By Chris Williams, CycloneFanatic.com Publisher
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Mark this down. At the end of the season, Kelsey Bolte will be a first team All-Big 12 player. She better be. If not, Iowa State will have one unhappy basketball coach on its hands.
“If she is not, then I have little or no respect for the coaches in the league who didn’t vote for her because that would be embarrassing,” said Iowa State head coach Bill Fennelly in Monday’s press conference.
I don’t think that Fennelly, Bolte or anybody else has anything to worry about. This is a no-brainer fanatics. Bolte, who will be playing her final game ever inside of Hilton Coliseum tonight, is averaging 17.6 points (third most in the Big 12) and 5.3 rebounds per game this season. She’s scored 25 points or more seven times this year and on Monday, Bolte was one of 34 athletes named to the State Farm Wade Watch List, which is college basketball’s most prestigious award.
“You judge a good player on the court by their numbers and what their team does,” Fennelly said. “When you look at the supporting cast that she has relative to some other people, I think it says a lot about her.”
Bolte is the only senior Iowa State’s roster and she’ll be honored after the 24th ranked Cyclones host Kansas (19-9, 6-8) tonight.
“The impact that she has made on our university has been dramatic,” said Fennelly. “There are a lot of people who have emailed me over the years about Kelsey Bolte and the way that she has acted towards people. She is a walking, talking example of what it is to be an Iowa State student-athlete.”
This season may or may not be the end of Bolte’s basketball career. If she decides to go that route, Fennelly thinks she’ll have a chance to make some money playing this game.
“I don’t know if she is a WNBA player,” Fennelly said. “That league is a little different. Our players sometimes don’t translate to that league. But she can play somewhere. She can play overseas. We’ve had a lot of people call and ask about her.”
Tip time tonight is set for 7 p.m. Iowa State (20-8, 8-6) lost to Kansas by an 86-85 (OT) final back on Feb. 9. The Cyclones will wrap up their season on Saturday afternoon with a road trip to Missouri.
