Coach Bill Fennelly will see a piece of his past this weekend as he welcomes his alma mater to Hilton Coliseum at 2 p.m. on Sunday when the Cyclone women’s basketball team takes on William Penn in an exhibition game.

Fennelly graduated from William Penn in 1979 and began his coaching career as a student assistant for the Lady Statesmen. Fennelly was with the Lady Statesmen for five seasons before becoming an assistant coach at Fresno State.

It has been a long offseason for Iowa State and Fennelly said the Cyclones are excited to get on the court.

“It could be the Lakers or William Penn, doesn’t matter,” Fennelly said “They’re going to want to play somebody and it will be fun for them.”

Fennelly isn’t the only one excited for the season to start. Sophomore point guard Lyndsey Medders said she is anxious to get back to full strength after an injury-riddled freshman campaign.

“For me personally, it has been an extremely long offseason, I’ve been really waiting for these exhibition games,” Medders said. “All I could think about on that operating table on April 14 was getting back out here and playing in front of the greatest fans in the country.”

Medders does have one recent injury to get over — a broken finger has limited her in practice recently — but she said she hopes to be fully healed by the season opener.

“I thought I was done with all the nagging injuries, but I’m obviously not,” Medders said. “I’m hoping it will be better to get it over with now than Nov. 21 when we play Cleveland State [in the regular season opener.]”

Fennelly said a broken finger might not seem like a big thing, but it is.

“Being a point guard and trying to be a shooter and having a broken pinkie on her shooting hand, it’s like turf toe in football,” Fennelly said.

Iowa State wants to improve on an 18-15 record from last year and might have the tools to do it. The team lost only one senior, Erica Junod, and has five seniors to lead the squad. Senior Anne O’Neil is the top returning scorer, at 12.2 points per game. She was an honorable mention All-Big 12 selection. Katie Robinette, Mary Fox, Lisa Kriener and Tracy Paustian are the other seniors.

Who will start, though, is still up in the air.

“We have an idea, but we have about six or seven kids who are really close. We’re going to play a lot of people, so who starts isn’t a big deal,” Fennelly said. “We’ll definitely have two post players in the game most of the time, but regardless of the score or situation, we’re going to play as many combinations as we can.”

Tinkering with the lineup isn’t uncommon in the early season. Practice can tell a coach only so much about actual game performance, so Fennelly said he will need to see who plays well and who struggles in an actual game situation. He said he tried to simulate a game at practice on Tuesday, bringing in referees and splitting the squad for a simulated game.

“Like most coaches this time of year, we’re not ready to play a game but we need to play one,” Fennelly said. “We need to see someone else, need to put our uniforms on.”

Iowa State will play two exhibition games before the regular season starts. After William Penn, Northwest Missouri State will come to town on Nov. 14 at 2 p.m.