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College basketball's March Madness is just a few weeks away. It's a time when women's basketball gets a lot more attention, and that's especially true in Iowa, which has seen plenty of talented players step into the national spotlight. One of the latest is Audi Crooks, who plays for Iowa State University. She's been breaking records and topping score charts. Iowa Public Radio's Isabella Luu stopped by a home game as more than 10,000 fans cheered for Crooks and the team.
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ISABELLA LUU, BYLINE: It was loud in the arena. The Iowa State Cyclones were playing the Kansas State University Wildcats earlier this month. With less than 6 minutes left in the game, Number 55, Iowa State's Audi Crooks, catches the ball from her teammate, pushes back and swivels around for a layup.
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Audi Crooks muscles it.
LUU: ISU fan Missy Sanow says that type of move is what the crowd has come to expect.
MISSY SANOW: It's just electric. When she gets the ball, it's just electric. Everybody, you know, looks to Audi to do great things, and she does great things. So it's...
LUU: Crooks got lots of publicity two years ago when she scored 40 points in her NCAA tournament debut. Now as a junior, she averages around 25 points per game. Joe Bartolo, one of Crooks' high school coaches, says in a time when three-pointers are considered a flashier part of the game, Crooks shows there's another way to play.
JOE BARTOLO: She kind of brings that old-school, low-post tough mentality that you can still beat people by scoring twos and attract a lot of attention to open things up for your guards.
LUU: As a sophomore, she was the first center to score 600 points during the 2024-2025 season. With more than 600 points this season, Crooks' scoring streak continues. Her coach Bill Fennelly says, on top of good footwork, timing and an ability to catch anything, there's something else that sets her apart.
BILL FENNELLY: Her physicality, her ability to play inside in among a lot of bodies is unique.
LUU: This is Fennelly's 31st season with Iowa State, and he says he's never coached a player like Crooks. He says the modern-day basketball world doesn't have a lot of true centers like her. And ISU has had to learn new passes and plays as they take on other teams.
FENNELLY: 'Cause everyone's game plan is surrounded by what they do to her. So we've learned to expect everything, and we've tried to practice against everything.
LUU: Crooks is 6-3 with a broad frame. Her nickname is Lady Shaq. Like former NBA star center Shaquille O'Neal, she's dominant in the paint, the area near the basket. In high school, there was lots of criticism about her size on social media. That hasn't slowed in college. In an interview last December with the YouTube show Champion This, Crooks recalled first seeing comments online when she was 14 and in high school.
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AUDI CROOKS: Every time a women's basketball player gets posted, it's either, she's not as good as man, or she looks weird. She does this differently. She this, this, that. Or it becomes a beauty competition. It's like, no, I'm not here to look good. I'm here to hoop.
LUU: Coach Fennelly says Crooks has been able to deflect the negative attention and serve as a role model for younger players. He says he gets an email almost every day from a parent saying how Crooks' example has encouraged their kids. During an interview on the Big 12 Conference's YouTube channel, Crooks said she's embraced the spotlight.
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CROOKS: When we're going out as a team to dinner, little girls will stop me and ask me for pictures. I don't take that for granted, and I just make sure that I want to use my platform in the correct way and just be a leader, be a role model for those people. And it means a lot to me.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Whoo.
LUU: The Iowa State Cyclones won that home game against Kansas State University. Crooks scored 20 points. Abby Stratton is one of her admirers. She's a member of the team's pep band. When she goes home and tells people that, people automatically ask about Crooks.
ABBY STRATTON: People that don't know women's basketball at all, they know Audi Crooks, and that is so - it's so exciting to see this in my lifetime happen, and I'm so lucky to be alive at the same time as her.
LUU: Crooks still has one more year to play at Iowa State, and fans hope her next step will be the WNBA. For NPR News, I'm Isabella Luu in Des Moines.
(SOUNDBITE OF KENDRICK LAMAR SONG, "SQUABBLE UP") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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