Following the Thanksgiving trip to Las Vegas and another road game in St. Paul, Minnesota, Iowa State will be back in Ames Sunday.

The last game the Cyclones played at Hilton Coliseum was nearly two weeks ago when they beat Southern. Now, Iowa State will have five straight home games to finish the non-conference portion of the schedule.

Freshmen Audi Crooks and Jalynn Bristow said they are glad to be back in Ames to play in front of the home crowd.

“It’s nice to be home,” Crooks said. “I’m excited to see the fans and just have that energy back. Even though they brought it to Minnesota, it’s nice to be back on the home court.”

“It’s going to be great,” Bristow said. “It’s going to be better than our away game. We’ll have more fans. Our fans showed out in St. Paul, so we expect nothing less.”

Iowa State will start the home push against North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). The Seahawks have had a rough start to the season, currently sitting at a 2-4 record, and the Cyclones will be the first Power Five team they play this season.

Adapting to the Seahawks’ play style is the main focus for head coach Bill Fennelly.

“They play a different style than we’ve seen, and that’s part of what happens in non-conference games,” Fennelly said. “Offensively, they’re gonna play a little slower and they’re gonna make you guard. They play a really good 3-2 zone, and no one really plays 3-2 zone against us.”

UNCW has had trouble with turnovers, much like Iowa State, and scoring has been an issue for UNCW as well. The Seahawks average 22.2 turnovers per game and have a shooting percentage of 34.6% from the field.

Crooks and Bristow said the St. Thomas game was viewed as a big confidence builder for the team. They expect the UNCW game to play out similarly, both confidence-wise and from a playing-time perspective for many players on the team.

Much like the St. Thomas game, Fennelly expects a lot of the Cyclones to get playing time against UNCW. Fennelly mentioned in games where players for Iowa State have fouled out, it is because they are playing for longer periods of time.

“We do not have a player, or players, that you think ‘Okay, for sure they’re going to play X amount of minutes,’” Fennelly said. “They’re all going to play, it’s just every game’s a little bit different.”

The Cyclones season will continue at 1 p.m. Sunday when UNCW comes to Ames. The game can be viewed on ESPN+.