AMES (AP) — Halfway through her first season at Iowa State, Megan Taylor is proving to be everything that was advertised.

She scores, she rebounds, she defends and she plays the game with such tireless enthusiasm that no one wants to guard her in practice.

And her teammates, confounded by the unorthodox jump shot that Taylor launches from behind her right ear, are still trying to figure out how she does it.

That shot, by the way, helped make Taylor the career scoring leader in Minnesota high school basketball.

“The first time I watched her shoot, I thought, ‘How in the world does she hit a scoring record?”‘ senior forward Jayme Olson said.

“I’m not going to lie,” Olson said. “You look at her and you can’t imagine that she did that, and then you watch her play and you watch her get a rebound and you had no idea where she came from and how she did it.”

Teammates also are amazed by Taylor’s stamina and her perpetual-motion playing style. Like the most durable of batteries, Taylor never seems to wear out.

“She just keeps going and going,” senior Janel Grimm said.

That makes her a challenge in practice.

“The guys are so funny because when they come in and (scrimmage), no one wants to guard her because she’ll run them like no one else,” Olson said. “They’re always, ‘You take her, who wants Megan?’ I’m glad she’s on my side because I wouldn’t want to follow her around.”

Taylor scored 3,300 points while playing in Roseau, Minn., a town of 2,400 that’s 10 miles from the Canadian border and farther north than International Falls.

Because of her numbers, the common perception was that Taylor had to be a gunner — someone who shot all the time and let her teammates do the dirty work. The first time she saw Taylor, Iowa State assistant coach Brenda Frese realized that wasn’t so.

“She was doing finger rolls and she was so athletic,” Frese said. “She did it all. She ran the point, she shot the 3, she could post up, she rebounded. She could play on both ends of the floor. She was just so intense.

“I remember hearing she was a great scorer,” Frese said. “I never realized she could do so much.”

Taylor laughs at the presumptions her scoring might have fostered.

“I think people think the only reason I scored a lot of points is that I shot a lot,” she said. “I really don’t think that’s true because I averaged — I don’t mean to brag — but I got like 14 rebounds a game and lots of them were offensive so I mean a lot of those are put-backs.

“But a lot of people are like, ‘Man, you must be a ball hog,”‘ she said.

Taylor certainly has not been one at Iowa State. The 5-foot-11 guard has fit in nicely with the Cyclones, starting every game for a team that’s 14-2 after winning at Colorado on Wednesday night — Iowa State’s first victory there since 1987.

She’s averaging 11.3 points and 6.8 rebounds while playing an average of 31 minutes. Taylor scored 23 points against Truman State for her season high and twice grabbed 13 rebounds in a game — against Iowa and Northern Iowa.

In Iowa State’s upset of Alabama in Hawaii, Taylor had 12 points, nine rebounds and sank two free throws with eight seconds left to secure the 61-58 victory.

“I think what she does is so natural to her that she doesn’t have any idea how good and how great she is going to be,” Olson said. “That’s what makes her so much fun. She just doesn’t have any idea.

“She doesn’t worry about it,” Olson said. “She’s just out to play because she loves it. I think she brings a whole new life to our team.”

Coach Bill Fennelly also likes Taylor’s potential, especially if she works on her ball handling.

“If her ball handling improves, because of her size and athletic ability, she could be a phenomenal off guard,” Fennelly said. “That’s the next step, to make sure she can beat people off the dribble.”