Completed Event: Women's Basketball versus UCF on January 31, 2026 , Win , 65, to, 52
Final
Women's Basketball
65
UCF
52
Iowa State University Athletics
Ezell to Begin Pro Career in Iceland
09.02.2009 | Women's Basketball, Letterwinners Club OLD
AMES, Iowa ? While the Iowa State women's basketball team is in full preseason mode, former Cyclone Heather Ezell will skip the preseason work when she begins her professional career this month in Iceland. Ezell signed with Haukar and will live in the capital city of Reykjav?k.
Ezell will travel to Iceland on Sept. 14, the first preseason tournament begins Sept. 26, and the regular season will get underway Oct. 14. While she won't have much time to adapt to her teammates before games begin, Ezell says she will be ready to go physically.
“It will be different,” she said. “I've kind of put myself through my own preseason to stay in shape. I have most of the workouts we've done over my four years. It's going to be important to learn really quick and to be able to work with those girls. It will be different from college where you have a couple of months of preseason and then a month of practice before you play a game.”
Learning on the fly is something Ezell is used to after playing for Bill Fennelly for four seasons. Adding and changing plays throughout the season is a given in Fennelly's system.
“The coach said the girls are really good at learning on the fly and they know what they are doing,” she said. “It will still be weird going from Iowa State where we have 200 plays. I'm sure we won't have that many over there. I'm used to learning plays in a couple of hours or within a day, so hopefully I can do the same thing there.”
Obviously the basketball court isn't the only place Ezell will have to make an adjustment. Moving to Iceland will bring a number of adjustments to climate, culture and language. Fortunately for Ezell most people in the country speak English. While she will be the only American on her team, there are two other Americans who will play in the league, but Ezell is not familiar with either of them.
None of that matters to Iowa State's all-time three-point leader. She's just happy to have a place to play.
“I am most excited to have an opportunity to play and the chance to go to another country and experience that,” Ezell said. “I'm a little nervous about the transition of going overseas to a new place.”
Ezell finished her Cyclone career at the top of her game, ranking in ISU's career top-10 in scoring and helping lead Iowa State to its second NCAA Elite Eight appearance in school history. She will try to do the same with her new team.
“The league they are currently in, they won last year,” she said. “There are eight teams in the league and I think there is another league in Iceland that we will play against. The coach said it is a very competitive league. They are good from top to bottom and usually have pretty good games every night.”
The process of finding a team to play for didn't go as smoothly as she would have liked, but the end result was most important. After playing in a pro camp in early June and being named MVP, Ezell still got little response from teams. She was offered a deal from a different team in Iceland, but the offer wasn't right for her.
“I have gotten a little nervous in the past couple of weeks because I didn't have anything, but my agent told me to keep waiting,” Ezell said. “This team in Iceland came through and offered me a pretty good deal. I'm looking forward to it.”
Ezell will join former teammates Toccara Ross and Nicky Wieben playing overseas. Ross has already begun her career in Puerto Rico and Wieben has arrived in Greece and on the cusp of her professional career. Ezell is ready to get started as well, but she has already planned a trip back to Ames.
“I will come back on Dec. 16, and I will be home three weeks for Christmas,” she said. “I plan on coming up for some games during that time.”
Cyclone fans will be glad to welcome her home.
Players Mentioned
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