Iowa State’s Ashley Joens Wins Cheryl Miller Award
The state of Iowa has been mighty good in women’s basketball this year, and you can add some more evidence to that. Iowa State Cyclones star forward Ashley Joens won the Cheryl Miller Award for the third time in her career, it was announced Saturday.
Joens is one of only two Big 12 players to ever score 3,000-plus points. She finished her career with 3,060 points while shooting 42.5% from the field, including 35.9% from 3-point range.
Unfortunately, though, her career ended in a disappointing way. Iowa State exited in the first round of the NCAA Tournament after an 80-73 loss to Toledo.
With that in mind, Joens was understandably overcome with emotion afterwards. The legendary Cyclones player, who assisted a lot in addition to her scoring run, needed a bit of an assist that time, and forward Morgan Kane was there to provide it for her.
“Yeah, it’s bittersweet, but I’ve been blessed to play here and…” Joens said, tearing up.
“I’ll say something. Ashley has had a huge impact not only on the court through her leadership but also off the court, she’s really brought us together as a team,” Kane said. And when things get hard and challenging, she’s the first one to bring us together. And so really grateful for that, that leadership, and more to come for her.”
Joens and Iowa State finished the season with a very solid 22-10 record. The Big 12 Tournament champions, it was 11-7 in regular season play, good for a third place finish there.
