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ISU's Ross on track with rehab

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By Eric Page | Friday, May 16, 2008 12:33 AM CDT | () comments

Former Davenport Central standout Toccara Ross, right, shoots hoops Thursday with teammate Nicky Wieben at Iowa State’s Tailgate Tour stop in Bettendorf. John Schultz/QUAD-CITY TIMES Buy this Photo

Standing in the parking lot at Cumberland Square in Bettendorf, Toccara Ross looked very much at home Thursday evening during the Iowa State Tailgate Tour stop in the Quad-Cities.

Ross, a Davenport Central grad and senior on the Cyclones women’s basketball team, was there with teammate Nicky Wieben and other members of the ISU athletic family, including director of athletics Jamie Pollard, football coach Gene Chizik, men’s basketball coach Greg McDermott, wrestling coach Cael Sanderson and women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly.

And several hundred Cyclones fans made it out for the second annual, informal meet-and-greet.

“For us,” Fennelly said, “coming to eastern Iowa, our fans over here are pretty hardcore people. You’re kind of in the middle of Hawkeye country. This is a way for us to thank them personally.”

Ross and Wieben, both starters, have been spending a lot of time together the past few months since both suffered ACL tears during the season. Ross blew out her right knee in a Dec. 22 game at Minnesota. Wieben suffered the same injury less than a month later at Texas.

They both had surgery in January and are about halfway through their rehab.

“Rehab is going good,” Ross said. “I need to pick it up a little bit, because I want to be able to play by the end of the summer.”

Ross, a 5-foot-11 forward, averaged 6.4 points and 3.7 rebounds in nine games before suffering the injury. Wieben, a 6-4 forward, averaged 12.7 points and 5.6 boards in 16 games.

Without them, Fennelly and the Cyclones managed to finish 21-13 and reach the second round of the NCAA Tournament. They’ll have everyone back next season, and, because Ross was granted a medical redshirt year, they’ll have Ross and Wieben back, too.

It could get a little crowded.

“They’ve played. They know the system. I don’t think it will be too hard to blend them back in,” Fennelly said. “It gives us a little more depth, too. It’ll be the first time in my time at Iowa State where we can go two deep at every position.

“You never know what’s going to happen, but it’s nice to have two players … it’s like having a great recruiting class, only they’ve already been through it.”

Ross said she is in the second phase of her rehab and has gotten a lot of her flexibility back, and she went through workouts with the team this spring.

“I’m doing pretty much everything,” she said, “just with no contact and at a moderate pace.”

With so much coming back after such a surprisingly successful year, there is a lot of excitement surrounding the Cyclones women’s program. Ross has been sensing it, and she heard about it from area fans Thursday in Bettendorf.

“We need to settle down a little bit,” she said. “We’re going to do everything that we did before, take it step by step. Everyone else is always going to have expectations for us. We just need to set goals and follow through.”