W BASKETBALL: Cyclones crack top 25

Nate Sandell

For the first time since the 2006-2007 season, the Cyclone women’s basketball team has broken into the top 25 national rankings, moving to twenty-fourth in the most recent ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ poll.

Iowa State returns 11 players from last year’s squad, which made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament, despite being hindered by injuries.

The last time the Cyclones were ranked in a national poll was in 2007, when they were voted twenty-fourth in the final 2006-2007 Associated Press poll. Iowa State has made it as high as No. 4 in both polls, which occurred in the 2001-2002 season.

Besides the Coaches’ poll, Iowa State is close to cracking the AP’s top 25, in which they are currently positioned in the twenty-seventh spot. The Cyclones join five other Big 12 teams — No. 2 Oklahoma, No. 7 Texas A&M, No. 9 Baylor, No. 14 Texas and No. 19 Oklahoma St. — in the Coaches’ poll.

— Nate Sandell, Daily Staff Writer