Audi Crooks’ Commitment Changes Views of What Is Possible for Cowgirl Basketball

About a month removed from having to hit the reset button after a promising season, the Cowgirl basketball program has as much hype around it as I’ve ever seen.

Oklahoma State picked up a commitment from Iowa State transfer Audi Crooks on Sunday night. A two-time All-American, Crooks was considered the top player in the portal. All of a sudden, it’s gone from, “What is happening in Stillwater?” in a negative connotation to “What is happening in Stillwater?” as in I can’t wait for next season.

On March 16, the Cowgirls fell to eventual champ UCLA in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.  OSU finished Year 4 of the Jacie Hoyt Era 24-10. It was a good, promising season. It was a year that the program could build off of. … But then the portal opened.

The Exodus

Already having lost key contributors Micah Gray and Haleigh Timmer to graduation, OSU would go on to lose Jadyn Wooten (12.8 PPG), Achol Akot (12.4), Amari Whiting (9.6), Lena Girardi (7.8) and others to the portal. All that was left was Stailee Heard.

It felt like a matter of, “Ah, shucks, it looks like the program just doesn’t have the support it needs in this modern era.” … But then names started coming in.

Incoming

It started with the addition of Division-II Player of the Year Talexa Weeter. Weeter averaged 27.5 points a game at Fort Hays State last season while shooting 40% from 3. She put up 46 points in a D-II NCAA Tournament game.

Then came Ellie Brueggemann, a Lindenwood transfer returning to her home state after averaging 14 points while shooting 44% from 3. She finished tied for 11th nationally with 96 3-point makes.

LA Sneed was the next to commit. Sneed was a five-star prospect who spent her freshman season at Utah. She finished averaging 6.3 points, 2.2 rebounds and 3.3 assists a game.

The trio of Weeter, Brueggemann and Sneed provided a solid start to the portal additions for Hoyt, but then stuff really started taking off.

Next came Liv McGill, who CBS Sports tabbed as the No. 2 player in the portal behind only Crooks. McGill was an All-SEC First Team selection as a sophomore this past season, averaging 22.5 points, 6.1 boards, 6.3 assists and 2.6 steals a game. She was probably the most credentialed basketball player OSU’s men’s or women’s team had ever landed out of the portal, but she’d hold that distinguishment for less than a week.

On Friday, OSU added Rutgers transfer Nene Ndiaye, who averaged 14.8 points and 5.4 rebounds a game last season while shooting 42% from deep.

Then late Sunday night, word broke that Crooks was in after three seasons at Iowa State where she averaged 22.8 points and 7.7 rebounds a game, earning All-American honors the past two seasons. She’s scored at least 40 points in five games. She’s scored at least 30 in 11. It’d be like if the men’s team landed Darryn Peterson from Kansas. It’d be like if the football team took one of Texas Tech’s edge rushers from last season.

So recapping the past seven paragraphs, OSU has added three players who averaged north of 20 points a game last season (sure, one was at the D-II level). The Cowgirls have added three players who shot 40% or better from 3 last season. OSU has added 32.8 rebounds and 17.4 assist a game.

Don’t Forget About Heard

All of these players add to who is the overall best player of the Hoyt Era to this point: Stailee Heard.

Heard is entering her third season with the program, and she’s been stuffing the stat sheet since she got in from Sapulpa. Here’s where Heard ranks on various OSU career lists entering her senior season:

Points — 15th (1,328)
Rebounds — 14th (649)
Assists — 20th (219)
Steals — T13th (159)
Double-doubles — T12th (18)

She’s probably going to finish in the top 10 in all of those categories (apart from maybe assists) by the time next season ends. She’ll go down as an all-time Cowgirl, and now she has the most talented team around her she ever has.

What Is Possible?

Not since the 2013-14 season have the Cowgirls made it out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, but given the roster Hoyt is building, that’s a streak that could certainly come to an end.

Iowa State has been in the Top 10 of the AP Poll the past two seasons with Crooks. Both of those seasons have ended in first-round exits, but Crooks didn’t have a McGill or Heard to play off of.

And all of this talent gets put into Hoyt’s offense. The Cowgirls averaged 81.1 points a game this past season — the highest averaged in the program’s history. What does that look like with even more talent, with the 3-point shooting of Heard, Weeter and Brueggemann clearing space for like likes of Crooks down low and McGill driving the paint?

What started as an offseason of disappointment that a talented team didn’t stay together has quickly turned into Hoyt gathering Infinity Stones and putting together what has to be one of the more talented teams the OSU program has ever had.