Iowa State women's basketball returns to the court against Oklahoma after a week away

The Iowa State women’s basketball team returns to action after a week off by welcoming the Big 12’s first-place team into Hilton Coliseum.

Oklahoma, unranked in the national coaches poll but leading the Big 12 with a 10-1 record, comes to Ames on Saturday (6 p.m.; ESPN+) with the Cyclones looking to shrug off their recent struggles, including their last game out at UCF a week ago.

"Sitting on a loss for that long, it’s hard to do,” freshman Addy Brown said Friday. “It’s driven a lot of our practices here lately, just knowing that we don’t want to lose another game, especially here at home against a great team.”

The Cyclones (13-8, 7-4) have lost four of the last five games in which they have played (with a win-by-forfeit against TCU in that time as well). It’s a level of adversity that is routine over the course of a Big 12 schedule, especially with all those losses coming on the road, but still new to Iowa State’s youthful roster.

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"Most of our kids, they’re used to winning a lot,” Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly said. “Not every day you’re going to get an A on the test. It doesn’t mean you quit working at it. You just talk a lot about that. The other thing is you work really hard to manage how you practice and how you prepare and really make them understand what’s ahead.

“You’ve got to rely on your older kids. This is going to happen. I don’t care who you are, when you play in this league, you can’t let it consume you.”

The lone Big 12 loss for the Sooners (16-6) came a month ago to No. 7 Kansas State in Manhattan. Oklahoma, which has won seven straight, ranks third in the Big 12 in scoring and is fourth in scoring defense during league play. Oklahoma’s Skylar Vann ranks fifth in the Big 12 with 17.6 points per game against conference foes.

"Skylar Vann, if you voted tonight, might be the Big 12 Player of the Year,” Fennelly said. “She’s playing at a ridiculously high level during their winning streak.”

There is plenty of familiarity between the two programs beyond being longtime Big 12 rivals. Aubrey Joens, a former Cyclone and sister to ISU freshman Kelsey Joens, is averaging 8.3 points per game.

"We’re focused on Oklahoma as a team and not so much the individual matchups as far as that goes,” Iowa State’s Emily Ryan said, “but it will be fun to see the Joenses going against each other.”

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There's familiarity on the bench as well, as Oklahoma coach Jennie Baranczyk is a former Iowa Hawkeye. She was also the head coach at Drake program for a decade before departing for Norman.

“They’re playing better than anyone in our league,” Fennelly said of the Sooners. “They’re playing as well as anyone in the country.

“We’re used to what Jennie’s done at Drake. They’re going to play hard. They’re going to play fast.”

While the game will be the main attraction Saturday evening, it also will serve as the setting for an Iowa State women’s basketball reunion that will highlight different generations of success the program has enjoyed over its 50 years.

"Every single one of those kids – they're my kids,” Fennelly said of his former players, “would love to do it one more time, and our 12 get to do it Saturday.

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“My thing would be, you need to go out there and play so that they look at you and go, ‘Yeah, that’s the way we do things here.’”

The celebration also helps give the current Cyclones some perspective – and something to aim toward.

“We have it really great right now, and they kind of set us up for that,” Ryan said. “Seeing them and putting yourself in their shoes in 10 or 15 years when you come back and feel like you made an impact on this program as well is something I focus on a lot, and I know a lot of our team does as well.”

Travis Hines covers Iowa State University sports for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or  (515) 284-8000. Follow him on X at @TravisHines21.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa State women's basketball vs. Oklahoma preview: big test for ISU