ISU senior Katie Robinette has filed paperwork with the Big 12 in an attempt to obtain another year of eligibility.

“It’s out of our hands now,” said ISU women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly. “She’s got a very good case, and she wants to play, but it’s up to the Big 12.”

Robinette is trying to get a fifth year of college basketball eligibility to make up for the year she had to sit out after transferring from Nebraska after her freshman year. Her coach for her first year, Paul Sanderford, left in 2002, and new Nebraska coach Connie Yori did not contest the transfer.

The appeal follows the Big 12’s granting of an extra year to Missouri guard Tiffany Brooks.

Brooks played four games in 2003 as a freshman at Kansas State before moving across state lines. Wildcat coach Deb Patterson didn’t contest Brooks’ transfer, and she started practicing with the Missouri team in January 2004.

Brooks’ first game in a Tiger uniform was Dec. 18, at the end of the fall semester.

Big 12 rules state a player who transfers within the conference will lose a season of eligibility, so Brooks would only have had one more year to play for the Tigers. The rule was waived for her earlier this month after her second appeal.

Robinette played a full year at Nebraska, then transferred after the 2001-02 season. She sat out a full year, due to conference rules, then sat out an additional semester after having a baby in October of 2003. She played her first game as a Cyclone on Dec. 21, 2003, after the fall semester was over.

“I’ve got my fingers crossed,” Robinette said through ISU officials.

“I’d love to play another year in a Cyclone uniform.”

There is no time frame for when the conference will make a decision on Robinette’s case, according to ISU Media Relations, leaving Robinette to sit and wait. “If we truly are in a world of doing what’s in the best interest of the student-athlete, she definitely deserves it,” Fennelly said.