Fennelly molds Cyclones into tourney team
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By Eric Page | Saturday, March 22, 2008 |
In all honesty, Bill Fennelly didn’t expect his Iowa State women to be here, playing in the NCAA Tournament in their own backyard.
It was too much to ask, too much to expect from an inexperienced group decimated by injuries to its two most experienced frontline players.
“Our mindset was just to find a way to be competitive. We figured the wins would be few and far between. But our kids found a way to get through this,” said Fennelly, the Davenport native who has the Cyclones in the NCAAs for the 11th time in 13 seasons.
No. 7 seed Iowa State
(20-12) will face No. 10 Georgia Tech (22-9) in a first-round game at 11 a.m. today at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.
Eight weeks ago, there were long odd against them even sniffing the postseason.
The Cyclones lost senior Toccara Ross to a torn ACL in late December and later second-leading scorer Nicky Wieben, also to an ACL tear. By mid-January, three games into the Big 12 schedule, they were left with a six-player rotation, including one player — junior college transfer Jocelyn Anderson — in the post.
“We changed a little bit of our style of play. We slowed the games down a little bit. We practiced a little differently,” Fennelly said. “We tried to do some things to help our team functionally.
“At the end of the day, it came down to emotionally and mentally staying strong. We kept telling them every day, ‘Tough times don’t last forever, but tough people do.’ ”
At first, it wasn’t pretty. Iowa State started 1-4 in the Big 12, including a 31-point drubbing at Kansas State two games after Wieben went down in a loss at Texas.
But slowly, the wins started coming, and 1-4 turned into 7-9 in arguably the deepest league in the nation, which earned ISU a No. 8 seed in the Big 12 Tournament.
“The media doesn’t like to hear it. The fans don’t like to hear it, but it was literally one day at a time,” Fennelly said. “Let’s get better today. Let’s go play the next game.”
With his starters logging 35-plus minutes a night and a bench that went two or three deep if he was lucky, Fennelly had to change his day-to-day approach. Practices were shortened to 45 minutes with little live action. An emphasis was put on film study and mental preparation.
“We had to save our legs,” Fennelly said. “We had to save whatever we could to be able to go out and compete for 40 minutes and not leave it all on the practice court. It’s helped our kids to have a little juice left in the tank in March.”
They had enough juice left to upset top-seeded and
No. 15-ranked Kansas State in the Big 12 quarterfinals last week, all but ensuring them an NCAA bid, which would guarantee playing the first two rounds in Des Moines.
Will they have enough juice left today to go up and down the floor with the Yellow Jackets, a fast-breaking squad that averages 71 points and forces 26 turnovers a game?
“No,” Fennelly said. “We have to make them play our game.”
That will mean limiting baskets so Tech can’t set its press.
“They can’t press a lot if they’re not scoring a lot,” Fennelly said. “The way to start it is with our defense. If we can play solid, half-court defense, we’ve got a chance to prevent them from pressing.
“We’re going to see 40 minutes of pressure defense. If we don’t handle it, there’s no chance. If we can handle it and hit some open shots, then we’ve got a chance to win.”
Eric Page can be contacted at (563) 383-2277 or epage@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
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