Audi Crooks and her mythos at Iowa State arrived at a new summit with a 14-point win over Texas Tech on Wednesday night in Ames. Crooks’ latest double-double, hanging a game-high 33 points and 12 rebounds on the Red Raiders, reached the 2,000-point mark faster than any player in Big 12 history.
In just 89 career games, Crook has tallied 2,014 total points as a Cyclone, and is on track to rank inside the conference’s all-time top 20 scorers before the end of the regular season. Iowa State’s 6-foot-3 center reached the 2,000 points faster than former Oklahoma center Courtney Paris (94 games).
Crooks (26.6 ppg) already leads the conference in nightly scoring, field goal percentage (68%), and is top-10 in rebounds with 7.5 boards per game.
Crooks, tabbed the Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year, is back on the Naismith Trophy Watch List again this year, as the Bishop Garrigan High School alum is building her profile ahead of the 2027 WNBA Draft, when Crooks will be 22 years old and eligible to enter the draft field. Some mock drafts already project Crooks as a first-round pick.
Eighth in the Big 12, Iowa State (17-5, 5-5 Big 12) is fighting for its place among the conference’s top 10 teams with eight games left on the schedule. The home win over Texas Tech makes three straight wins since snapping a five-game losing skid against Cincinnati on Jan. 21.
Autumn Johnson’s latest NCAA women’s bracket prediction has Iowa State, a 10-seed, facing Nebraska, a 7-seed, in the Region 3 corner in Fort Worth.
