Emilija Dakic arrives in Ames after spending the previous season with the Florida Gators. Originally from the city of Melbourne, Dakic played a bench role for a Gator squad that finished the season 5-11 in conference play, but does have international experience playing for the 2024 Australian U-18 team that won the Asia Cup gold medal. That is where she first started playing with Washington transfer Sienna Harvey. Paired with former teammate Gift Ezikiel, coming to Ames will feel more familiar than
the usual transfer experience.
What will Dakic bring?
Both at Florida and for Australia, Dakic has served bench roles, averaging 7-15 minutes a game. Dakic stands at 5-10, and there are a lot of guards on this squad. What Dakic does have is previous experience with two players on the roster, which can give her a head start in the early portions of the season. Playing at Florida, she also has experience at the top level, including notching her season high of 10 points against powerhouse South Carolina. That can certainly help as the non-conference season ramps up from the bottom feeders of the division to the upper-mid table of the MVC (Iowa State is scheduled for FOUR games against the MVC) to top level teams like USC and Iowa.
How will Dakic be used?
Until they start playing games, we won’t truly know how Bill Fennelly plans on using each piece of the roster and how many minutes everyone should expect. Frankly, I don’t think we will have a clear idea on the minute distribution until midway through conference season. That is natural for a team that is effectively all new faces to the program. WIth this wide open opportunity, Dakic does have the opportunity to rise to the occasion, demonstrate that she can earn quality minutes at the power conference level, and be a key depth piece on the roster.
This team is going to play fast and hard, so if they are able to do that with high depth, that will allow the roster to maintain this intensity throughout the season. We may not be able to go with the extreme case of Grinnell system of basketball (which is a rabbit hole I highly recommend if you have the time), but that philosophy of short outbursts of high intensity may be the solution for a roster that has so many unknowns but has a lot of guards that want to shoot. If Dakic can play 10 quality minutes with high intensity so the opponent can never relax, that can be a hugely important catalyst for a Cyclone squad that is slated to be a very fun team to watch.
