The Iowa State women are preparing to play red-hot Marist in the first round of the N-C-A-A tourney Saturday in the Philadelphia regional in Durham, North Carolina. Coach Bill Fennelly says Marist is tough because they don’t make mistakes. Fennelly says they don’t turn the ball over and are number one in the country in fewest turnovers, they lead the nation in defense, have a lot of good interchangeable players, making it hard to game plan against them.
He says they can all shoot the three and have good free throw shooters. Fenelly says the key for his team is to find a way to put up some points. He says they have been solid defensively against some really good teams and he thinks they can guard okay against Marist, but says they need to find a way to score. Fennelly says playing defense against the motion offense takes discipline.
Fennelly says the most important thing defensively is to not relax off the ball as motion offensive teams read what happens off the ball. He says it is a hard concept because they don’t see a lot of that type of offense. Marist is the 10th seed and has won 26 straight and are 30-2 overall. Iowa State is the seventh seed and comes into the game with a 22-10 record. Gametime is 10:15 a.m.