“At 6’3″, Audi Crooks’ official weight remains unlisted on the Iowa State roster, but her 2025-26 stats speak for themselves. With a 47-point school record and a 64.7 percent field goal average, she has cemented her status as one of the most dominant forces in women’s college basketball.”
Audi Rae Crooks, born December 13, 2004, in Algona, Iowa, is a junior center for the Iowa State Cyclones of the Big 12 Conference. She came to Ames as one of the most decorated high school players in Iowa history, and she has spent three collegiate seasons making that billing look modest.
As a freshman in 2024, she scored 40 points against Maryland in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, setting a new single-game tournament scoring record for freshmen, and averaged 19.2 points and 7.8 rebounds per game on 65.5 percent shooting. She became the first freshman in Iowa State program history to earn an All-America honorable mention from the Associated Press. Her sophomore year pushed that bar higher still, with 23.4 points per game and 820 total points, both Iowa State single-season records at the time.
Audi Crooks’ Height and Weight: What the Official Record Shows – and What It Doesn’t
Her official Iowa State Athletics profile lists her height as 6 feet 3 inches but omits her weight entirely. That’s not an oversight. As CollegeSports Network reported in January 2026, the NCAA does not mandate weight reporting for women’s college basketball players, unlike men’s programs. The decision is widely understood as a measure to protect female athletes from body-focused scrutiny and online harassment, and Crooks has spoken directly about why that matters.
In an interview with Sports Illustrated, she recalled the first time she was posted on ESPN at 13 years old: “I definitely wasn’t developed, and I wasn’t really in shape. Seeing that when you’re 13, and there are grown men talking about you and your body instead of the game that I’m playing – that’s crazy.” Her response to those who continue to focus on her frame has been equally grounded. “There might be 100 comments about my body or about how I look,” she told the publication. “But then there are 1,000 about my skill set, about my character.”
While fans and unofficial sites often speculate about her exact weight, neither Crooks nor Iowa State has engaged with those conversations. What the program focuses on instead is her physical strength as a competitive advantage – the broad, powerful frame built for post play, combined with footwork and touch that most centers at any level don’t have.
Iowa State head coach Bill Fennelly, now in his 31st season with the program, has said he has never coached a player like her.
Her nickname is “Lady Shaq” – a comparison Kevin Garnett made after watching her dominate in the paint, and it’s easy to see why. She scores almost exclusively on twos, thriving in an era that worships the three-pointer. As her high school coach Joe Bartolo put it: “She kind of brings that old-school, low-post tough mentality that you can still beat people by scoring twos.”
Audi Crooks’ Stats and Records in the 2025-26 Season
The 2025-26 season has been the most explosive chapter of her career. Her season and career averages through 30 games tell the story cleanly:
Season Averages (2025-26)
| Stat | 2025-26 | Career Avg |
|---|---|---|
| Points per game | 25.5 | 22.6 |
| Rebounds per game | 7.8 | 7.7 |
| Assists per game | 1.7 | 1.4 |
| Blocks per game | 0.8 | – |
| FG% | 64.7% | 61.0% |
| PER | 41.8 | – |
Her player efficiency rating (PER) of 41.8 is among the highest in women’s college basketball this season. She is Iowa State’s career leader in scoring average and currently the ninth-highest scorer in program history with 1,701 career points across 98 games.
The 2025-26 season also produced two record-breaking single-game performances back to back:
Single-Game Records (2025-26)
| Date | Opponent | PTS | FGM-FGA | FTM-FTA | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 12, 2025 | Valparaiso | 43 | – | – | ISU win (prev. school record broken) |
| Nov 30, 2025 | Indiana | 47 | 19-25 | 9-11 | 106-95 ISU win, Coconut Hoops MVP |
On November 12, 2025, she broke a school record that had stood since 1984 by dropping 43 points against Valparaiso in just 20 minutes. Eighteen days later, she broke her own record: 47 points on 19-of-25 shooting against Indiana, with both the point total and field goals made setting new Iowa State single-game marks.
Her double-figure scoring streak extended to 76 consecutive collegiate games after that performance – every game of her Cyclone career except her very first. For 2025-26, she earned the AP Second Team All-America, USBWA Second Team All-America, and The Sporting News Second Team All-America honors, along with her third consecutive unanimous First Team All-Big 12 selection, and has appeared on the Naismith Trophy Midseason Team and the Wooden Award Late Season Watch List in back-to-back seasons. went 9-of-11 from the free throw line in 33 minutes, leading Iowa State to a 106-95 win and earning MVP honors at the Coconut Hoops tournament. Both the point total and the field goals made were Iowa State single-game records.
Her double-figure scoring streak extended to 76 consecutive collegiate games after that performance. She has now scored in double figures in every game of her Cyclone career except her very first. For the 2025-26season, she has earned the AP Second Team All-America, USBWA Second Team All-America, and The Sporting News Second Team All-America honors, along with her third consecutive unanimous First Team All-Big 12selection. She has appeared on the Naismith Trophy Midseason Team and the Wooden Award Late Season Watch List in back-to-back seasons.
Her career line through 98 games averages 22.6 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 1.4 assists on 61.0 percent shooting – making her Iowa State’s career leader in scoring average. She is currently the ninth-highest scorer in Cyclone program history with 1,701 career points, a total that will climb sharply before she’s done.
Background: From Algona to Ames
Before Iowa State, Crooks was a generational talent at Bishop Garrigan High School in Algona, Iowa – the same school where her mother, Michelle Cook, was once one of the all-time leading scorers. Crooks didn’t just match her mother’s legacy there; she broke her school record in career field goal percentage. She finished her high school career with 2,734 points and 1,339 rebounds, going 101-8 as a team across four seasons.
Her father, the late Jimmie Crooks, played college basketball at Minnesota State and passed away on August 14, 2021, at age 54. She wears jersey number 55 as a tribute to both parents, who each wore that number during their playing careers.
Beyond basketball, Crooks competed in shot put and discus in track and field, winning four Iowa state titles. She also plays five instruments – guitar, bass guitar, trumpet, drums, and piano – and is studying psychology and sociology at Iowa State.
Her WNBA draft projection currently sits in the first round of the 2027 WNBA Draft, per most projections, as she has one season of college eligibility remaining after 2025-26.
Additional Information
- Crooks scored 49 points in the 2023 Iowa Class 1A state championship game, finishing as the all-time leading scorer (332 points) and rebounder (160 rebounds) in Iowa state tournament history across all classes.
- In March 2024, Crooks signed a multiyear NIL deal with ClaimDOC, a medical claim auditing company based in West Des Moines, Iowa, and appeared in an advertisement at Des Moines International Airport.
- On July 21, 2025, she was signed by Unrivaled, a 3×3 basketball league, as part of “The Future is Unrivaled Class of 2025” NIL class.
