By Connor Ferguson
The Iowa State Women’s basketball team started off their 2016-17 season with a 77-60 victory against the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos on Friday afternoon.
The Cyclones only shot eight three-pointers on the day, a very uncharacteristic thing to do for a Bill Fennelly team.
“I don’t know if there’s ever been a game where we had more steals than three point attempts,” Fennelly said.
The Cyclones finished the game with 15 steals, seven of which belonged to graduate transfer Heather Bowe playing in her first career game as a Cyclone.
“Honestly it comes in practice, our practice players do a really good job helping us,” Bowe said. “[It was] just kind of preparing against them and also it really helped being able to trust Seanna and the guards and [trusting] them to be there for the steal.”
Iowa State finished the game with five players in double digits in an all-around effort to get past UCSB.
“To have eight players get 12 or more minutes, no one played more than 30, that’s something we need to continue to do,” Fennelly said. “When you put people in the game and their efficient, it pushed the lead further up.”
The game tipped off at noon and served as an opportunity of a field trip for area schools. Anti-bullying videos were shown before the game on the big screen as well, teaching the students not to bully.
“I told the kids before the game, part of what we are supposed to be about is impacting young people, not just bringing them to a game and letting them eat clone cones,” Fennelly said. “I thought the anti-bullying thing was really special and it’s fun to be a part of that. [The marketing team] did an amazing job.”
The Iowa State women will return to the court on Tuesday, November 15th when they take on the in-state rival Northern Iowa Panthers. The game tips off at 7:00 p.m. and will be televised by Cyclones.tv.
