Basketball dominance comes from downtown

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Photo: Dan Tracy/Iowa State Daily

ISU senior Kelsey Bolte launches a three-point shot in the second half of Monday’s game against Cal State Northridge. Bolte hit four three-pointers to help the Cyclones defeat the Matadors 93-47. Photo: Dan Tracy/Iowa State Daily

Dan Tracy

At the end of this college basketball season, if you ask any coach, player or fan of the sport what streak defined the season, the 90-game win streak by the University of Connecticut women will be the most common response.

That streak may define this season, but a record broken Monday night at Hilton Coliseum may define the ISU program’s last 16 seasons.

Just a couple minutes into the Iowa State v. Texas game Monday, senior guard Kelsey Bolte drained the 260th three-pointer of her career to give Iowa State a new NCAA record for consecutive games with a 3-point field goal made.

“I don’t think any of us were really thinking about it we were just thinking about the game, thinking about what we had to do and the details we had to cover,” Bolte said. “We got it though we’re really happy about it and we beat Texas so we’re really happy.”

The new record, which surpasses the 510-game streak of Canisius College, which ended Feb. 18, has spanned 511 games. Those include the final three games of coach Theresa Becker’s tenure in 1994-1995 and all 508 games Bill Fennelly has coached over his 16-year career at Iowa State. The Cyclones have now made 3,856 3-pointers in Fennelly’s time on the bench.

“It’s kind of one of those quirky little records that I think what it says is it’s a record that took a long time to achieve and there’s a lot of people that made a lot of shots,” Fennelly said.

The Cyclones made only 5 of 21 3-point attempts in the game but still came out victorious over coach Gail Goestenkors’ Texas squad 66-57 in overtime.

“It’s an amazing feat,” Goestenkors said about the streak. “Iowa State’s always done a great job hitting the threes and they’ve got so many players that can hit them so you can’t just shut down one person.”

The previous record holder, Canisius College, saw its streak come to an end at 510 last Friday when they went 0-for-12 from 3-point range in a 66-56 loss to Iona College.

“As the game wound down, I knew,” said Canisius coach Terry Zeh in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “I didn’t do anything to try and extend [the record]. We were going to being shooting 3s anyways.”

Prior to their loss, Zeh said the record was rarely ever discussed amongst his team, but that changed after Friday.

“Now that it’s been broken I actually pay more attention,” Zeh said. “I don’t for any one minute not want to see Iowa State break the record and keep it going for a crazy amount of games.

“It’s been such a big part of ISU basketball and how they play so I think for them it means so much more,” Zeh said.

The Cyclones will try to continue their 3-point streak and move their win-streak to two as they travel to play Kansas at 7 p.m. Saturday in Manhattan, Kan.