Not much has changed since last year’s ISU women’s basketball team left the court for the final time, except for one minor detail.

Angie Welle .

A huge gap has been left in the post after the departure of Welle, Iowa State’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder.

ISU head basketball coach Bill Fennelly is comfortable with the returning guard play as senior Lindsey Wilson and junior Erica Junod are still in the mix, but he is frantically trying to fill the void in the middle that was occupied so well by Welle.

“It’s a huge loss, no one can say that it’s not,” Fennelly said. “We don’t have one person who can replace her, but that is what college basketball is all about, you build a program over time and it’s other people’s opportunity now.”

Those “other people” are really just two players — sophomore Lisa Kriener and freshman Brittany Wilkins. With both standing at 6-foot-3, they are the only two post players the Cyclones have, but Fennelly is optimistic.

“You look at Oklahoma’s team last year, they didn’t really have a true center and they made it to the national championship game,” Fennelly said.

“I think people are going to have a hard time guarding us, but I think on the other hand, how are we going to guard them and try to find a rebound?”

These are the questions that Kriener and Wilkins are trying to answer, and the process began with massive improvement in the off-season.

“Lisa Kriener will start, no question about it,” Fennelly said. “You won’t recognize her as a player. I don’t know what she did over the summer, but I wish all our players would do it.”

Kriener is coming off a freshman season that saw her average nearly two points and three rebounds a game. But just like her coach and his confidence in her, she feels like she is ready for the challenge.

“I knew that I was struggling in my offensive game last year. I was so timid to shoot,” Kriener said. “I got a lot more confidence over the summer, as far as with the ball and everything with the game. It was an awesome summer for me building-wise. I worked really hard, and hopefully it’s going to show.”

Kriener, a St. Ansgar native, has been working very closely with Wilkins, who has never played a minute of Division I basketball because of knee surgery that resulted in her redshirting last season.

“I’m really nervous at times when I think about it,” said Wilkins, who hails from Arlington, Neb. “But I’m mostly excited because Coach Fennelly told me I don’t have anything to worry about because at least I know I’m going to play.”

Though she has yet to play in a game, Wilkins said she learned a lot last year, because she was able to sit and soak things in, such as the crowds and what other teams are doing.

With that knowledge, Wilkins also used the summer as a time to improve on as much as she could.

“I worked out a lot this summer, worked on maybe shooting on the outside because we don’t have as much size this year,” Wilkins said.

“[Kriener] and I communicate really good together, so I think that will help us out during the year.”

Fennelly admits no one can fill Welle’s shoes and that he is focusing more on guard play this year, but he is hoping Kriener and Wilkins can combine to put up numbers comparable to Welle.

“It’s not fair to say that Lisa Kriener has to take up where [Welle] left off,” Fennelly said. “I think the older, more experienced kids have to do that.”

Kriener and Wilkins have been working together in practice to try and figure out how they will fill the void while also putting in hours of time on the basics of defense and rebounding.

“We’re awesome friends. We have a great time playing together and it will be fun,” Kriener said. “There is a little bit of competitiveness there, but I think we can both fill [Welle’s] shoes together.”

Fennelly won’t go so far as to call this a transition year because of the amount of talent in the guard positions.

He said everyone is learning how to play the post and dribble and shoot the ball, as he plans to mix up the lineups by possibly having four guards on the floor at one time.

After experiencing so much success at Iowa State, Fennelly said he knows that anything can happen. As far as Kriener and Wilkins goes, he is excited to see what they can do.

“I told them life is full of opportunities,” he said. “There aren’t two inside players in this country that have a better opportunity than these two, they are the only two we have.”