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Former Iowa State women's basketball star Ashley Joens signs … – Des Moines Register
Former Iowa State star basketball player Ashley Joens is getting a second shot in the WNBA.
Joens, of the most successful players in Iowa State women’s basketball history, signed an emergency hardship contract with the Las Vegas Aces, the team announced Wednesday. WNBA teams are allowed to sign players above the league’s 15-player maximum if they have fewer than 10 available players due to injuries or illness.
The Iowa City native became a free agent after the Dallas Wings waived her last month. Joens was a second-round pick by the team earlier in the year and appeared in eight games before being let go.
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She averaged 0.3 points in only 1.8 minutes per game during her short stint with Dallas. After being cut, Joens returned to Iowa and gave basketball lessons in Iowa City and Ames while she waited for her next opportunity.
It’s now coming with a team that already has one other Iowa native on its roster, center Kiah Stokes, who went to Linn-Mar High School.
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Joens ended her college career at Iowa State as one of the most decorated players in the program’s history. She finished with 3,060 career points, most in school history, and was recently named the Big 12 Conference’s female athlete of the year.
Tommy Birch, the Register’s sports enterprise and features reporter, has been working at the newspaper since 2008. He’s the 2018 and 2020 Iowa Sportswriter of the Year. Reach him at tbirch@dmreg.com or 515-284-8468. Follow him on Twitter @TommyBirch.