All-American Iowa State Center Audi Crooks Sets Transfer Destination

The ex-Cyclone is staying in the Big 12.

With Oklahoma State, Audi Crooks will try for a third straight Big 12 scoring title. | Nirmalendu Majumdar/Ames Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Center Audi Crooks won’t finish her college career with Iowa State, but she is set to stay in the Big 12.

Crooks has committed to play for Oklahoma State in 2027, she announced Sunday night on social media.

“Guess who???” she wrote on Instagram with a cowboy emoji, four orange hearts, and photos and videos of her in Oklahoma State garb.

The move marks a seismic shakeup for both the Cyclones and Cowboys, as Crooks—a 21-year-old who played her high school basketball in Algona, Iowa—had been perhaps the transfer portal’s most notable entrant this offseason. She’s garnered All-America acclaim in each of the last two seasons, but that doesn’t do justice to her accomplishments.

Crooks has been a scoring machine at Iowa State

It didn’t take long for Crooks to establish herself as a constant scoring threat upon her Nov. 2023 debut with the Cyclones. In just her second collegiate game, she tagged Drake for 23 points in an 85–73 loss. She scored as many as 29 points (against Oklahoma State) that season, but the real fireworks came against Maryland in the first round of the NCAA tournament. In that game—a 93–86 Iowa State win—she set a tournament record for a freshman with 40 points, a mark she only needed to take 20 shots from the field to hit.

In 2025, she scored even more, averaging 23.4 per game to win the first of back-to-back Big 12 scoring titles. Crooks upped that number to 25.8 in 2026, cracking 40 points on four separate occasions against Valparaiso (43), Indiana (47), Kansas (41), and Kansas State (41). Despite Crooks’s prowess, coach Bill Fennelly’s squad couldn’t advance past the second round of the NCAA tournament in her three years in Ames.

“She had a tremendous year,” Fennelly said before his team played Syracuse in the `26 tournament. “I say this all the time—anytime anything positive happens for Iowa State, Audi Crooks plays basketball at Iowa State. It's great for our university. And I think for her it truly is a team thing.”

The Cowboys present a new challenge

During Crooks’s career with Iowa State, Oklahoma State has (for the most part) hovered near the Cyclones in the standings. The Cowboys finished two games ahead of Iowa State in conference play in both `25 and `26, winning an NCAA tournament game over Princeton in the latter year and going 3-0 against Iowa State.

Oklahoma State’s program, however, is starved for greater national success. Where the Cyclones advanced to the tournament’s second weekend as recently as 2022, the Cowboys haven’t been that far since a Sweet 16 trip in 2014. Crooks has the chance to build a second legacy at a program eager to take the next steps.

On a more practical level, the six-foot-three Crooks should be able to provide immediate size to a roster where the entire top five in minutes per game in `26 were guards. She’ll also replace forward Achol Akot, who bolted for North Carolina last Monday after leading Oklahoma State in win shares.

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