Fallon Ellis has some big shoes to fill within her own family.

Her mother, Sonya, was the 1985-86 Southwest Conference Player of the Year, and led Houston in scoring from 1983-86.

Her family’s athletic abilities do not stop there, though. Her brother played in the Indoor Football League and her grandfather played football at Iowa State and was a member of the “Dirty Thirty” team before going onto a NFL career.

Her cousin, Alisa Burras, has played with three WNBA teams. Not to be forgotten is her other cousin, Monta Ellis, a nine-year NBA veteran who is averaging 20 points per game for the Dallas Mavericks this season.

With sports running in the family’s veins, Fallon played “every sport you can think of.” Naturally, she followed in her mother’s footsteps and excelled at basketball, though she said her mom maintains the upper hand.

“I always told her that I want to be better than her and she was just like, ‘You’re never going to be better than me so give that one up,’” Ellis said with a laugh.

Living in a household of sports fanatics, Ellis was instinctively competitive. She had two older brothers to fend off. Video games, board games, various sports — it didn’t matter. Everything was a competition.

And while there was a fair amount of trash talking and bragging rights going around throughout the household, Ellis said members of her family were her biggest supporters, as well as her biggest critics.

“My mom bragged about how good she was back in college and she coached me when I was younger, so it kind of helped guide me through,” Ellis said. “She would critique me after every game [and] my brothers would critique me after a game.”

That criticism and unwavering support pushed Ellis to pursue perfection. She knew she had big shoes to fill. Maybe she couldn’t surpass her mother’s and some of her other family member’s achievements, but she at least wanted to match them.

“I always wanted to be as good as they were,” Ellis said. “I looked up to my brothers, looked up to my mom, looked up to my dad and everybody in my family and I always wanted to be just as good as they were.”

Fast forward to Ellis’ career at Iowa State. Now a senior on the team, Ellis plays a reserve role. Typically, she plays less than 20 minutes a game. She is not the team’s leading scorer or rebounder.

In fact, Ellis averages just 4.8 points and 3.7 rebounds per game for the Cyclones this season. While her stats are not eye-popping, some of her contributions to the team have been, especially considering that ISU coach Bill Fennelly was not even sure what Ellis’ role on the team would be coming into the season.

A pair of freshmen in Claire Ricketts and Bryanna Fernstrom would get big minutes in the post and Madison Baier looked for minutes as well.

Injury issues for Baier and Ricketts opened the door for Ellis to step in and fill a gaping hole that the Cyclones had in the post.

With Fernstrom being the only other true post player to get big minutes for the Cyclones, Ellis was forced to provide the only senior leadership in the paint.

“I think for Fallon it was about … even though you’re undersized, you can do something and you’re a senior,” Fennelly said. “I told her, ‘You’re going to win two or three games for us. Do something that’s unique to the team and hit a 3 or play a lot of minutes.’ I think she did it in the K-State game. I thought she did it the other night [against West Virginia].”

Against West Virginia, Ellis poured in all 11 of her points in the first half, keeping afloat an offense that otherwise was struggling to score. After the game, Fennelly credited Ellis as the reason why his team was still in the game at halftime.

Ellis poured in nine points and a career-high 14 rebounds against Oklahoma on Feb. 17, doing the dirty work down low and playing a pivotal part in the Cyclones’ upset victory.

Ellis has played her role to perfection throughout her senior season. She won’t usually be the one leading, but when the Cyclones need something to get done, she has proven that she has the ability to accomplish whatever that task may be.

“She’s not someone that’s going to play [a lot], you know she’s going to get 14-18 minutes every single night,” Fennelly said. “Her and Bry [Fernstrom] have kind of become the two-headed post five man and they eat up most of the minutes.”

Fernstrom has become the go-to post player in her freshman campaign, as she is averaging more than 10 points per game on the season, while Ellis has fallen back into a more reserved role.

Typically, Ellis does not score a ton of points and does not grab a ton of rebounds, though every now and then she shows she is capable of putting up big numbers when called upon.

Much of Fallon’s dirty work does not show up in a box score. Instead, she does the little things that help win games.

Those little things include setting screens, boxing out for someone else to grab the rebound or being able to get physical with the other team’s best post player.

Her effort on the court has not gone unnoticed off the court.

“Everyone loves Fallon,” Fennelly said. “She’s a very respected kid on this team. People like her. She’s done things the right way here, carried herself the right way. You always route for the underdog mentality kind of and I think Fal has done a good job of that. “

At the end of the day, that’s exactly what Fallon wants. Nobody remembers box scores 10 years down the road. Nobody cares about statistics or who scored the most.

While Ellis still has a few more goals she hopes to accomplish, like reaching the NCAA tournament again and making a deep run when the Big 12 tournament roles around, her legacy has already been pretty solidly cemented.

“I want [my legacy] to be not only was she a good player, but she was a really good person … not only did she come in and do what she needed to do on the court, but she did it off the court as well,” Ellis said.

She will not lead the conference in scoring or even the team in scoring, like her mother did back in her day. She probably will not play professionally, like her brother, grandfather, or cousins have.

But when it comes to following in her family’s footsteps and filling those big shoes?

She feels pretty good about that one.