Billy Fennelly - Women's Basketball Coach - Iowa State University Athletics

Billy Fennelly

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:
billyfen@iastate.edu
Phone:
515-294-3444

Billy Fennelly is in his 14th season as an assistant coach and 16th overall with the Cyclones. Nearing 20 years in the women’s basketball business, Fennelly has demonstrated knowledge and expertise in what it takes to maintain a successful program at Iowa State and at his other stops as well. Those efforts saw him named among the Top 50 Most Impactful Assistants in women’s college basketball by Silver Waves Media.

At Iowa State, Fennelly has served as recruiting coordinator for the Cyclone program, which has seen Iowa State bring in many decorated classes ready to make an immediate impact. Five recruiting classes in the last decade have been ranked in the Top 25, with ISU’s 2020 class that included Emily Ryan ranked No. 7 overall. Ashley Joens was top-30 recruit and one of the highest-ranked recruits in program history, helped brought to Ames via Fennelly’s efforts. The 2023 class that included Addy Brown, Audi Crooks and Arianna Jackson ranked 13th in the nation.

Another area Fennelly has helped Iowa State excel in has been defensive scouting. Long one of the nation’s most potent offensive teams, Fennelly has helped the Cyclones begin to excel on defense and win a different variety of contest, helping put together defensive game plans to isolate and shutdown some of the nation’s top scorers and prevent teams best players from being able to do what they do best.

During his time on the coaching staff, Iowa State has continued to excel as a program. Recent seasons have seen those pieces come together with ISU making 11 trips to the NCAA Tournament, including 2021-22’s program-record 28 win season that saw the Cyclones return to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2010. Fennelly also guided the young 2024 Cyclones to a second round appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

Much of Fennelly’s time is spent individually coaching student-athletes. Iowa State is widely regarded as one of the best talent developers in the country. Fennelly has personally coached four WNBA draft picks. Most notably, he coached Bridget Carleton, whose illustrious Iowa State career included consensus All-America honors, Big 12 Player of the Year and the recipient of the 2019 Cheryl Miller Award, honoring the nation’s top small forward. Fennelly was also the position coach for three-time defending Cheryl Miller Award winner, All-American and four-time All-Big 12 First Team honoree Ashley Joens, who finished her career as Iowa State’s all-time leading scorer with 3,060 points.

Prior to returning to his alma mater, Fennelly got the opportunity to work for a pair of the nation’s top coaches in Joe McKeown at Northwestern and Brenda Frese at Maryland. At Northwestern, where he served as Director of Operations for two seasons, Fennelly helped the Wildcats execute a +11 win gain in 2009-10 (the third-best in the nation that season), helping NU to the Round of 16 of the WNIT (the program’s first postseason appearance in 13 years). At Maryland, Fennelly served as Assistant Recruiting Coordinator for a Terrapins team that went 33-4 in 2007-08 and reached the Elite 8.

Within the women’s basketball community, Fennelly has been recognized and well-respected by his peers for a number of years. Fennelly was called on to present at the 2017 WBCA Convention at the Final Four in Dallas on “Steps to Success,” highlighting how he climbed the ranks from a student manager to an assistant coach. He was also selected by Nike in 2014 and 2015 as one of the top up-and-coming assistants in women’s basketball to attend the prestigious Villa 7 consortium.

He was selected by top administrators, in 2019, as one of the top up-and-coming assistants in women’s basketball to attend the Inaugural “Next Chair” symposium.

Fennelly previously spent three seasons on his father's staff, serving as a team manager for the Cyclones from 2004 to 2007.

College basketball is certainly the family business for the Fennelly Family. Billy’s brother, Steven, also previously served on the Iowa State staff and as an assistant coach at UNI. Billy is married to Lyndsey (Medders) who is a former All-American point guard at Iowa State and was drafted into the WNBA. She is widely regarded as one of the top female trainers and motivators in the country. The couple has two children, Will and Callie.