As highlights of the ISU women’s basketball team’s improbable run to the Elite Eight of the 1999 NCAA Tournament played on the Hilton Coliseum Jumbotron, Stacy (Frese) Huber, the team’s scoring leader that year, stood at center court gazing at the screen with her teammates, suddenly overcome by a twinge of emotion.

“It was unfair, because I’m pregnant and I started to cry a little bit,” Huber, who is seven months along her second child, said with a laugh. “It’s fun to come back and be part of it all again.”

The halftime celebration during the Cyclones’ upset victory over 12th-ranked Kansas State on Saturday night was part of a weekend-long gathering of former ISU letterwinners, including members of the 1998-1999 Elite-Eight team.

Heading into that historic season, Iowa State was a program on the rise. Prior to coach Bill Fennelly’s arrival in 1995, the Cyclones had endured nine straight losing seasons. In just three years, Fennelly’s teams compiled an overall record of 59-30 and made the NCAA tournament for the first time in 1997. With four future 1,000-point scorers on the roster — Frese, Megan Taylor, Angie Welle and Tracy Gahan — the ‘98-’99 squad was poised for an improbable run.

“When you looked on the court there wasn’t anything we didn’t have,” Fennelly said. “We had people who could make shots. We had a little bit of size. We had experience.”

The Cyclones began the season strong by winning 13 of their first 14.

“We started out at a very high level and continued to get better,” Fennelly said. “Even the games we lost, it wasn’t like we felt we were taking a step backwards. It was just one of those teams that had a real mature approach to going to work every day and understanding why they had to practice.”

Despite losing to Texas Tech in Big 12 championship game, Iowa State earned a fourth seed in the NCAA tournament. After disposing of Santa Clara and Oregon, the Cyclones found themselves on the same court as top-seeded Connecticut. With a national television audience watching the game on ESPN, Iowa State completed the upset and marched on to the Elite-Eight — the furthest any Cyclone team has gone in the tournament.

“I remember one of my sons saying that we beat them on their own network when we beat them on ESPN,” Fennelly said.

Although the run was ended by Georgia, Iowa State’s tournament run brought the program into the national conscience.

“It probably established a core fan base that we continue to build on,” Fennelly said, whose teams have had only one season without at least 18 wins since 1999. “I think it sent a message that a place like Iowa State could have a decent women’s team.”

With some seeing the clips for the first time on Saturday, the former teammates, along with the 11,656 fans in attendance, re-experienced the Cyclones’ moment of triumph, including Monica Huelman’s go-ahead 3-point shot against the Huskies.

“It was a lot more emotional than I thought it would be,” Taylor said.

Even after ten years, the team remains in close contact with each other, staging mini-reunions two or three times a year.

“We’ve all stuck together over the years just because we did have such a great experience,” Huber said. “We all have kids, so our kids play together now.”

Understanding the gravity of having historic halftime reunion, Fennelly made sure his team was there to experience it.

After sophomore Kelsey Bolte drained a jumper as the first half buzzer sounded, instead of heading to the locker room, the players took their seats on the bench to watch as the letter winners were paraded onto the court.

“For coach to let us sit at the bench at halftime, that meant a lot to us. To be in the same atmosphere as them and watch the crowd just react to how big an impact they had,” Bolte said

Although this year’s squad has not yet matched the feats obtained by the elite-eight team, Fennelly thought his team’s performance Saturday was on par.

“The only thing I told them after the game was we have a long way to go, but tonight they can stand next to those kids in the same way and act like ‘I played the Iowa State way’ just like them,” Fennelly said.