Bryanna Fernstrom never wanted to play basketball, until she did.

Growing up in Center City, Minnesota, near the Wisconsin border, Bryanna, or Bry as she’s called, was more interested in four-wheeling, camping and ice fishing than playing basketball.

Boating and spending time on the lake behind the Fernstrom house took priority for Bry despite persuasion from her father, Kendall, and her brother, Joe, to give basketball a shot.

“I never really wanted to play basketball,” Fernstrom said. “I had no idea how to play at all, so I was like, ‘No, I don’t like basketball. I’m not trying out.’”

Fernstrom had the size to play basketball — reaching the 6-foot mark by sixth grade — but lacked the motivation, the drive.

Because Joe, who was three grade levels older than Bry, began playing traveling basketball in fifth grade, 7-year-old Bry would tag along for practice — dribbling and shooting haphazardly on the sidelines with her dad.

Kendall and Joe recognized Fernstrom’s potential as a basketball player and insisted that she, at the very least, try out. If she didn’t like it, she didn’t have to stick with it, they said. 

Their pursuit of Bry’s basketball future continued for a number of weeks, all culminating into one final conversation just days before tryouts. They sat her down in her parents’ bedroom, giving Bry one final opportunity to say yes. 

At this point, Bry was more annoyed with her family members than interested in playing basketball. Nevertheless, she knew there was only one way to make her current problems fade away.

“Shut up. I’ll do it.”

***

Fernstrom was already behind the curve.

She had to learn faster than the other players. So she played with and against more advanced, more experienced players  — being thrown to the wolves, so to speak.

The first proverbial wolf in Fernstrom’s basketball career had been alongside her all along — watching SpongeBob SquarePants through the night and playing with imaginary friends out in the yard. It was her brother, Joe.

Having played a large role in persuading Bry to play basketball, it was natural for Joe, in a true, brotherly form, to teach his sister how it’s done. This manifested itself through countless games of one-on-one in the driveway.

Joe, then in ninth grade, took advantage of Bry’s inexperience.

He had several years and several inches on his younger sister, and he made sure she knew that. Joe would drive around her and dunk over her to the point where Bry called in her dad for reinforcement.

“Every summer, every day we would go out and play one-on-one,” Fernstrom said. “He would dunk over me and do these crazy moves, and I would lose every time. I would have these rules [for Joe] where like, ‘You can’t play defense out of this box,’ and he would still block me.”

Even though Bry was losing the majority of those games with her brother, she was still learning. Joe challenged her in a way that she wasn’t being challenged in traveling basketball at the time.

“[Joe] was a big help in getting me interested and making me a better player,” Fernstrom said. “Even though he was dunking over me, I was still getting better.”

***

When Bry began playing traveling basketball in fifth grade, her height and strength alone made her the best player on the team.

“No one knew anything about basketball” on the team, she said. Even though this created a larger role for Bry — which helped her decide to stick with the sport — she still relied on Joe to push her and develop her skills.

Things took a turn for Bry during her seventh-grade year.

Her middle school coach’s daughter, Whitney Tinjum, was two years older than Fernstrom and played AAU basketball. Through that connection, Fernstrom joined one of the top AAU programs in Minnesota: a place where Fernstrom felt she didn’t belong.

Fernstrom had met her next pack of wolves.

“In her first year of AAU ball, that’s when things changed,” Kendall said. “She had good coaches, and [she was] playing against girls that [were] the best in the state. Then she played against girls who were the best in the country.”

Bry had yet to face competition even close to this level in her first two years of basketball, but as in the driveway games with Joe, it was a challenge she took in stride.

Her teammates were much more skilled, but Bry began to see rapid growth in her own game as she continued to compete at this higher level.

In her first year playing AAU ball, Bry’s team didn’t lose a single game in Minnesota, advancing to nationals, where her team finished seventh.

“I started to realize how fast I was getting better,” Bry said. “When I got on that team, I was really bad, but then [the coaches] started teaching me stuff, I started to get a lot better and saw that I could be good.”

Bry began to run with them.

At that point, Bry began individual workouts with coaches as she grew more serious about basketball.

During one of those workouts, a coach told her she could play Division I basketball for a mid-level program, as Bry was setting herself apart from the pack. She was running ahead of those wolves.

This trend continued into Bry’s career at Chisago Lakes High School. Bry could have tried out for the varsity team in middle school but fear inhibited her.

However, after gaining experience with an elite AAU program and beginning to set herself apart, she tried out her freshman year.

“I was really nervous I wasn’t going to make a team at all for some reason,” Bry said. “But I ended up making varsity and starting.”

Bry was the sole freshman on varsity that year. She became a four-year letterwinner, a nominee for Minnesota’s Miss Basketball, Pioneer Press Player of the Year and a McDonald’s All-American nominee, setting Chisago Lakes season records in points, rebounds, field goals, field goals attempted and blocked shots along the way.

Bry had survived and excelled among her AAU and high school wolves, but what waited down the road were wolves unlike any Bry had ever faced.

***

After the 2014 season came to a close, ISU head women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly had a dilemma.

Hallie Christofferson, two-year AP Honorable Mention All-American and Fennelly’s main source of size, graduated in 2014. The 6-foot-3-inch forward started in 117 of the 128 games the Cyclones played from 2010 to 2014 — averaging 13.4 points and 6.2 rebounds per game on 30.9 minutes during her ISU career.

With Madison Baier, Iowa State’s only other player taller than 6’2”, tearing her ACL during the 2013-2014 season, Fennelly was in desperate need for some size to supplement the guard play of Jadda Buckley, Nikki Moody and Kidd Blaskowsky.

During recruiting, a certain 6-foot-5-inch, left-handed center out of Chisago Lakes stood out to Fennelly and his staff.

With replacing Christofferson in mind, assistant coach Billy Fennelly contacted Bry via social media just days before she was to leave on a trip to visit several colleges in the Southwest.

That message led to an official visit, which eventually led to Fernstrom playing in all 31 games for Iowa State last season.

“We knew that Iowa State was losing a post player in Hallie,” Kendall said. “We knew that they had gone to that post player in the past. If you watch the highlights, a lot of it was feeding the post player. That had a lot to do with the system that was run. It really worked out well with [Bry] and Iowa State.”

Fennelly and his staff agreed, and Fernstrom started in 24 out of her first 25 games as a Cyclone — leading the ISU effort in the post.

The transition from high school to college did not come easy for Fernstrom, however.

At Chisago Lakes, Fernstrom rarely matched up against post players who were her size, making post play an easier endeavor. However, the wolves of the Big 12 matched and exceeded Fernstrom’s size and strength. Players such as Breanna Lewis of Kansas State and Imani McGee-Stafford of Texas made life tough in the post for Fernstrom.

This new, tougher style of play at a level Fernstrom was not yet accustomed to led to some inconsistencies in Fernstrom’s play. Her numbers fluctuated — 25 points in her first game as a Cyclone against USC Upstate but only four in the next game, against Drake. 

Again, after scoring just three points against Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Dec. 14, Fernstrom rebounded to score 20 and 18 points against Fairfield and Howard, respectively, adding 17 rebounds to her stat line, as well.

“[Last year], she was like the stock market,” Fennelly said. “Really up and really down. There isn’t maybe a harder thing to do than to play in the post as a freshman.”

Nevertheless, with the post game historically being a large part of Fennelly’s gameplan — with players such as Christofferson, Chelsea Poppens and Anna Prins — the Cyclones stuck with Fernstrom. Almost immediately, she was put into a position that she may not have been completely prepared for at the time — learning and growing through experience.

The trend continued.

“We threw her to the wolves because we had no other post players,” ISU assistant coach Latoja Schaben said. “She had to learn while she was going. It’s like telling a person to swim who’s never swum before.”

Despite early inconsistencies, Fernstrom continued to gain valuable experience matching up against the giants of the Big 12. And as Fernstrom’s basketball history can attest, it should only be a matter of time before she is running alongside those wolves.

“Going into the Big 12 as a freshman and starting, [I wasn’t] very confident,” Bry said. “I heard a lot about the big players [in the Big 12]. As I little freshman, [I didn’t] really know what it was like to play them. But going into this year, I’m a lot more confident, and I think that will carry over into my game.”