Peterson: My Iowa State athletics notebook includes an Audi Crooks gem and Hilton Magic
AMES — It’s time for that occasional emptying of the ol’ notebook(s), where random phone numbers, a grocery list, scribbling, and horrible penmanship, can be found.
Among the more recent notebook jottings: Something about drums, magic, airplane problems and the 2024 Big 12 football schedule that’s hopefully released sooner rather than later.
Let’s start with the drums and Cyclones women’s basketball star Audi Crooks
The true freshman from Algona – with the always-positive and engaging personality – has been known to serenade teammates before Hilton Coliseum shootarounds on gamedays.
She doesn’t sing over the Hilton Coliseum loudspeaker, at least to my knowledge. She doesn’t play the alto sax, either, that I know of.
When not averaging a team-best 16.5 points while shooting a team-top 60.2%, and becoming Iowa State’s first freshman to be named Big 12 Player of the Week, she’s doing something else.
Where’s Audi?
Oh, there she is – up where the band sits, playing the drums, of course.
More: Peterson: Is this Bill Fennelly's best work as Iowa State's basketball coach? Absolutely.
“We’d just come out on the floor,” coach Bill Fennelly recalled about a recent Audi sighting. “She’s up there banging the drums. I was worried the band would get mad.”
What about it, Audi?
“Oh shoot, who told you that,” she asked me.
Can’t reveal my sources, I told her. So what about it?
“I started playing drums actually with my dad when I was younger,” Crooks said. “I played the drums in church. I play the drums here in Hilton when nobody’s around.
“I just mess around before practice. Music is fun for me.”
More: Bishop Garrigan basketball star, Iowa State signee Audi Crooks inspired by her late father
Fennelly shook his head when he saw what his star post player was doing.
“She’s up there having fun,” Fennelly said. “If that’s fun for Audi, then it’s fun for me. I told her that if she’s going to play them, she’d better play them well. That’s who she is, and what she does. Our staff has done a great job letting the freshmen, especially Audi and (Addy Brown) – letting them be who they are.”
That Hilton Magic Iowa State basketball fans fondly speak, was on full display recently
Outside, fans were wondering if their cars would start (assuming they weren’t stuck somewhere in a snowbank).
But inside Hilton, the men and women went 4-0 between Jan. 9 and Jan. 13, the men beating then-No. 2 Houston and Oklahoma State, and the women defeating West Virginia and then-No. 7 Baylor. Throw in coach Kevin Dresser’s wrestling team’s blowout against Utah Valley, and Hilton Coliseum was a very warm and cozy place to be.
“You don’t win games like that if you don’t have all hands on deck,” men’s coach T.J. Otzelberger said after the 57-53 victory against Houston on Jan. 9. “The great part about being a Cyclone is that everybody’s hands are on deck, and you see that in a blizzard when people come out.
More: Peterson: Is this Bill Fennelly's best work as Iowa State's basketball coach? Absolutely.
“You see the support. So, to me, it’s more celebrating everybody else and the appreciation for everybody else and everything they do to give us the opportunity to do what we do on a daily basis. (I have) a lot of gratitude.”
And on the next day, the women beat West Virginia. Three days later, they beat Baylor.
“I’ve been blessed to be here a long time,” Fennelly said, “and the way these people have embraced me, my family, our players — it just doesn’t happen everywhere. I know it does at some places, but not when it’s below zero outside. It just doesn’t.
“It’s like, 'Oh, you should expect it – it’s what Iowa State fans do' -- but I don’t. I don’t take it for granted, I promise you.”
More: Peterson: Iowa State basketball sent a big-time message against No. 2 Houston
Men’s stars Tamin Lipsey and Milan Momcilovic were at the podium after the Houston game, when someone asked about the loudness, despite Hilton being just about half-full thanks to the frightful weather outside.
“It was up there, especially for the amount of people that were here,” Lipsey, a sophomore said. “It was definitely one of my top (crowd noise) games.”
The freshman next to him promptly added:
“I felt it was really loud,” Momcilovic said. “As loud as a place I’ve ever played.”
Just wait until Saturday, Jan. 27, when Kansas comes to town for the regular season’s only Cyclones-Jayhawks game.
This scrawling filled the last unused page of the notebook: Big 12 football in 2024
Oh yeah. The schedule. When will it be released?
More: A look back at Iowa State women's basketball's wins over top-10 teams in the last decade
The 2023 schedule came out on Jan. 31, 2023, but we all know what new Big 12 leadership thinks about following history:
No Iowa State at Kansas basketball this season.
No Iowa State-Kansas State Farmagedden football in 2027 for the first time since 1916.
I’ve been told the new leadership isn’t to blame for college basketball’s most popular conference having simultaneous men's and women's tournaments, so let’s give them a pass on that one. The popular guess is that Texas had something to do with it, and Texas isn’t even in the league after this year’s tournament in March.
Anyhow, back to the next football schedule.
Next week?
Maybe
Oops, I found one more scribbled upon page.
I wrote the initials CMC.
Even if football coach Matt Campbell has interviewed for other head coaching positions (which I cannot confirm) since becoming Iowa State’s football coach, would you rather have a coach about whom major schools aren’t interested?
Of course not.
Campbell is still at Iowa State. He had a pre-planned meeting with new players last Sunday. He had a similar scheduled meeting with returning players Monday.
It’s not my business what they talked about, but I can pretty much assume it was about expectations for winter conditioning and spring practice, considering the new semester just started.
He likes where the program is headed, he likes the community – and the community likes him.
Iowa State columnist Randy Peterson is in his 51st year writing sports for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at rpeterson@dmreg.com, on X @RandyPete, and at DesMoinesRegister.com/CyclonesTexts
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Peterson on Iowa State's Audi Crooks, Hilton Magic and Big 12 football
