One of the biggest names in women’s college basketball is looking for a new home.
Iowa State center Audi Crooks, the No. 2 leading scorer in Division I during the 2025-26 season, plans to enter the transfer portal. She announced the move on Instagram Thursday.
“Cyclone nation, thank you all for embracing me and showing up to Hilton every single game day,” Crooks said in a statement. “Words cannot fully express how grateful I feel to have called this place home.”
“I still believe the grass is greener where you water it, and I’ve done that here. It’s why I want you to hear from me directly that I have decided to enter the portal and explore what it means to take root again in new ground,” Crooks continued.
The 6-foot-3 Algonia, Iowa, native averaged 25.8 points and 7.7 rebounds on 64.9% shooting in her most recent season with the Cyclones, and was named a Second-Team All-American by the Associated Press. She led an Iowa State team that went 22–10 (10-8 Big 12) and bowed out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament as a No. 8 seed, falling 72-63 to No. 9 Syracuse.
Crooks has averaged 19 or more points in each of her three seasons with Iowa State. She first rose to national prominence in ISU’s 2024 first-round NCAA tournament win against Maryland, where she scored 40 points on 18-of-20 shooting, settling the single-game record for most points by a freshman in NCAA tournament history.
The Cyclones made three consecutive NCAA tournaments in Crooks’s time there, failing to advance past the first round during their past two seasons.
As of 2024, Crooks had multiple Iowa-based NIL deals, including Iowa Pork Producers and the West Des Moines-based auditing company ClaimDOC. The Audi Crooks Foundation also has a Knock N Dash program that delivers care packages to households in Kossuth County, Iowa.
ESPN asked Crooks in a March 2026 interview whether she’d stay at Iowa State. She didn’t respond.
Crooks is also eligible for the 2026 WNBA draft because she turns 22 later this year, but has said she plans to stay in college. Her announcement Thursday explicitly mentioned the portal, suggesting she plans to play another college season before going pro.
Iowa State women’s basketball now has 10 players in the transfer portal, including second and third-leading scorers Jada Williams and Addy Brown, respectively. In a video Thursday, Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard commented on the team’s transfers, though he did not explicitly mention anyone by name.
“Although disappointing, it’s really an unfortunate product of the state of our industry at this point in time,” Pollard said of the portal entries. “In today’s world, student-athletes leave for a lot of reasons. Some leave because they are searching for more playing time, some players cause they’re homesick, some because they are disgruntled, and now, some leave because they just want the ability to maximize their revenue from the school they’re at.”
