Iowa
Three observations and a quote as No. 5 Texas beats Iowa State in Big 12 basketball game
Four Longhorns — Madison Booker, Shaylee Gonzales, Shay Holle and Aaliyah Moore — scored at least 12 points and No. 5 Texas extended its winning streak to six games with an 80-61 win over Iowa State at Moody Center on Saturday. The victory kept Texas (24-3, 11-3) in the running for the Big 12 championship.
Here are three observations and a quote from the Longhorns’ 19-point triumph:
Texas takes control during the second quarter
When a media timeout was called with 4:37 left in the second quarter, Texas found itself down 31-30. Less than five minutes later, the Longhorns rolled into halftime with an 11-point lead.
So, how did Texas go from facing a one-point deficit to holding a 44-33 edge? Booker scored six points in a 66-second span, and UT also got buckets from Moore, Gonzales and DeYona Gaston as well as a Taylor Jones free throw. Defensively, Texas forced two turnovers while limiting Iowa State to a 1-for-8 shooting performance.
Iowa State was unable to get any closer than five points in the second half against Texas, which outscored the Cyclones 23-10 in the fourth quarter.
Two of the Big 12’s top freshmen go head-to-head
Saturday’s game featured the only two players to win three Big 12 freshman of the week awards this season. Booker, the Texas point guard, and Iowa State center Audi Crooks had also each been recognized once as the Big 12 player of the week.
Since both players played well on Wednesday — Booker scored 23 points in a 82-66 rout of Houston while Crooks had 20 points and nine rebounds in a double-overtime takedown of No. 7 Kansas State — another weekly award was possibly on the line on Saturday. Perhaps either Booker or Crooks would also emerge as the clear frontrunner for Big 12 freshman of the year.
In addition to the win, Booker recorded her second double-double performance of the season. She had 18 points, which matched Gonzales’ team-high total. She also distributed a career-high 10 assists while committing only two turnovers. In the fourth quarter, she earned perhaps her biggest cheers when she loudly blocked a shot by Iowa State’s Addy Brown.
“Madison Booker is skilled, very mature beyond her age,” Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly said. “The game doesn’t speed up for her and you got to give her a lot of credit and their coaches for, you know, she’s had to make a position adjustment without Rori (Harmon).”
Added Fennelly: “It’s a bad comparison, but since I’m in Texas, she’s got a little Kevin Durant in her. Got a fadeaway, jumper, can do a lot of things. Very impressive on film and a lot more impressive sitting on the bench watching her play.” That comparison may be apt for Booker, who wears the No. 35 because of Durant.
Crooks held her own over the 33 minutes that she played. The 6-foot-3 newcomer shot 10-for-19 from the field and led all scorers with 24 points.
“She’s got a great career in front of her,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. “She is hard to deal with.”
Texas, two others pull within one game of Oklahoma
The Big 12 race can now be considered a sprint to the finish. Oklahoma entered this weekend with a two-game lead over Kansas State, Texas and West Virginia, but the Sooners (18-7, 12-2) were beaten on the road by West Virginia (22-3, 11-3) on Saturday. That means that lead over the Longhorns, Mountaineers and a Wildcats team that beat Central Florida is down to one game.
Each of those four teams must play four more games in the regular season. The key games down the stretch will be West Virginia’s trip to Kansas State (22-4, 11-3) next Wednesday and Oklahoma’s home game against Texas on Feb. 28.
“You can’t take anything for granted right now, especially in this league with so many good teams. Anything can happen on any given night, so it’s really just one game at a time, focus on who’s next,” said Holle, whose team will host Texas Tech this upcoming Wednesday.
Texas and Oklahoma split the Big 12 championship last year. West Virginia won its last conference championship in 2014 and it’s been 16 years since Kansas State was last crowned.
They said it: Shaylee gets back to scoring
“I tried to focus on being more aggressive. I feel like that really helped me and just driving it to the basket,” — Shaylee Gonzales.
Her 18 points were a conference-high total this season for the sixth-year guard. Gonzales had been limited to 13 points over her last four games despite playing 124 minutes in those contests. Against Iowa State, she made eight of her 15 shots and knocked down two 3-pointers within 40 seconds of each other in the first quarter.
What to know about Iowa State canceling gymnastics season
What to know about Iowa State canceling gymnastics season
Iowa State University announced March 3 that it is cutting its women’s gymnastics program, weeks after abruptly canceling the remainder of the season due to what athletics director Jamie Pollard said were “unreconcilable differences” in the program.
Cyclone gymnasts were informed of the decision to cut the program by ISU associate athletics director Shamaree Brown in a meeting on Tuesday morning, two people with direct knowledge of the situation told USA TODAY Sports Network.
Iowa State gymnastics head coach Ashley Miles Greig and her three assistant coaches were told that their contracts would not be renewed, the university’s news release stated. Miles Greig’s contract was set to expire after the season on June 30, 2026.
Cyclones gymnasts will have the option to remain at Iowa State to finish their degrees, or to transfer to another NCAA school to compete in gymnastics. If they stay at Iowa State, ISU will honor their scholarships. Iowa State’s release said its compliance department would work with the NCAA on waivers to help gymnasts receive an additional year of competition.
Tuesday’s announcement ended weeks of speculation about the program’s future that began when Iowa State canceled its gymnastics season on Feb. 8. In a statement at the time, Brown said the decision was because the Cyclones did not have enough athletes available to compete. In a letter to the gymnastics team and alumni on Feb. 17, Pollard wrote that the cancellation resulted from “a series of complex internal conflicts between individual teammates, coaching staff members, and parents,” language that Iowa State repeated in Tuesday’s release.
In a video released by the school, Pollard said Iowa State would take the next several months to decide which women’s sport would replace gymnastics so that the athletics department remains compliant with Title IX, a federal law that requires NCAA schools to provide proportional participation opportunities to men and women.
“I also want to say, this is not a financial decision. This is a student-athlete experience decision,” Pollard said in the video. “Adding another women’s sport will probably cost equal or more than what we’re already spending on the gymnastics program. This is about student-athlete experience.”
Pollard said that Iowa State conducted reviews of its gymnastics program in 2018 and 2023 stemming from unspecified issues. The 2023 review, conducted by an external law firm, led Iowa State to part ways with then-head coach Jay Ronayne. Miles Greig was hired in April 2023.
On Tuesday, Iowa State denied USA TODAY Sports Network’s public-records request for the findings of the university’s 2018 and 2023 gymnastics probes. In an email denying the request, Ann Lelis, a member of Iowa State’s office of general counsel, cited portions of state open records law that prevent the disclosure of personal information of students or public employees. Lelis also said the requested records were not subject to disclosure because they contained confidential attorney privileged documents.
In the video, Pollard said he asked his senior leadership team “to meet with those individuals in our department that work really closely with our gymnastics program and make a recommendation to me about what we should do going forward.”
The leadership team recommended to Pollard that the school discontinue the gymnastics program, Pollard said, and use those resources for a different women’s sport. Pollard accepted the recommendation from his staff, and he spoke with university leaders. “We are all on the same page,” he said. “This is the right decision for our athletics program and for our student-athletes.”
Cyclone gymnast Samantha Schneider, a redshirt freshman, wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday that she was heartbroken by the decision and criticized Iowa State’s administration for deflecting blame onto the gymnasts.
“Terrible that this is the result of the lack of support from Iowa State’s Athletic Administration,” Schneider wrote. “For the last 5 months, we have come forward as a team regarding (certain) situations and environment concerns and nothing has been done to protect us as athletes on this team. The gymnasts should NOT be blamed or be sharing any part of the responsibility for this decision being made.”
A former member of this season’s coaching staff also mourned the decision in a text message to USA TODAY Sports Network on Tuesday. The person requested anonymity for fear of repercussions.
“At the end of the day this is unfair to the athletes and the alumni that have built this program and have continued to ask for better,” the coach wrote. “It appears that the department was looking for an easy way out or an easy solution, not realizing they would hurt a lot of people in the process. My only hope is that the athletes can come back stronger than ever.”
Miles Greig could not be immediately reached for comment when contacted Tuesday morning by USA TODAY Sports Network.
The Iowa State gymnastics team participated in four competitions this season before the athletics department shut down the remainder of the season on Feb. 8. Nick Joos, Iowa State’s senior associate athletic director for communications, told USA TODAY Sports Network at the time that the cancellation was due to a “combination of injuries and other health issues.”
During what ended up as Iowa State’s final meet against Denver on Feb. 1, several Cyclone gymnasts fell off the uneven bars. The Cyclones forfeited their next meet on Feb. 6 against West Virginia, with Miles Greig saying in a statement, “At this time, we do not have enough student-athletes available to safely field a team against West Virginia, and regrettably must cancel this competition.”
Two days after that, Brown met with gymnasts on Feb. 8 at Iowa State’s on-campus practice gym and informed them that their season would not continue.
Iowa State’s annual financial report submitted to the NCAA for fiscal year 2025 showed the gymnastics program generated $287,392 in total operating revenues with $1.69 million in expenses, a gap of about $1.4 million. Iowa State allotted 14 scholarships to gymnastics. Football and men’s basketball are the only Iowa State sports in which revenue exceeds spending.
Cyclone gymnastics recruits who had committed to the program for the 2026-27 season can commit to a different school or attend Iowa State and have their scholarship agreements honored.
Former Iowa State gymnast Shea Mattingly, whose last name was Anderson when she graduated in 2012, said she had been in contact with other former members of the team after Tuesday’s announcement.
“We’re all frustrated. We’re all angry,” Mattingly said. “That (Pollard) video made us all really mad, honestly. … It places all the blame on these student-athletes whereas the administration’s accountability in this, they hired these coaches that maybe it seems like they couldn’t handle the program.”
Mattingly said she and other alums aren’t giving up hope on the future of the program.
“I think we’re still going to fight,” she said. “So we’re going to send emails. We’re going to call. We’re going to do all we can, even though it seems his mind has been made up.”
Seven of the eight spots for the upcoming Class 3A Iowa High School Athletic Association Boys State Tournament were determined Monday night in substate championship action.
Advancing to the Casey’s Center in Des Moines, Iowa were ADM, Ballard, Storm Lake, Carroll, Gilbert, Pella and Solon. On Tuesday, Cedar Rapids Xavier will play Dubuque Wahlert Catholic, as that game was moved due to the Dubuque Wahlert Catholic girls competing in the girls state tournament.
The seven teams advancing were all the higher seeds, as six of the seven picked up victories on their home court. The other – Storm Lake’s 66-53 win over Sergeant Bluff-Luton – was held at nearby Buena Vista University.
ADM claimed a 30-point decision over Nevada while Ballard bested Oskaloosa, 79-45. Carroll claimed a three-point triumph vs. Sioux Center, Gilbert bested rival North Polk, 73-62, Pella eliminated Keokuk, 60-47, and Solon downed Central DeWitt, 49-44.
The state tournament bracket will be released following the conclusion of the Cedar Rapids Xavier-Dubuque Wahlert Catholic contest.
The 4A substate championships are also on deck for Tuesday evening.
Iowa State basketball coach TJ Otzelberger on prepping for Arizona
Iowa State basketball coach TJ Otzelberger on prepping for Arizona after loss to Texas Tech.
We’re heading down the homestretch.
Iowa State men’s basketball has two regular-season games left, followed by the Big 12 Tournament.
Iowa State enters the final week of the regular season with a 24-5 overall record and an 11-5 mark in Big 12 action.
The Cyclones have a NCAA Tournament resume-bolstering opportunity on Monday, March 2 with a road game against Arizona, before wrapping up the regular-season on Saturday, March 7 against Arizona State.
Plenty can still change with bracketology from now until Selection Sunday on March 15, but here is where experts are projecting Iowa State to land in the NCAA Tournament entering the final week of the regular season:
Iowa State basketball’s computer metrics as of Tuesday
Eugene Rapay covers Iowa State athletics for the Des Moines Register. Contact Eugene at erapay@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @erapay5
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