The absence of weight listings for female college basketball athletes like Audi Crooks on platforms like ESPN and Sports Reference is something many people ponder. While WNBA players and men’s athletes in college basketball have their weight listed, NCAA women’s basketball players don’t. But why so?
Well, this comes primarily from a long-standing cultural and institutional tradition in women’s sports. While the NCAA mandates weight reporting for men’s sports (often used for scouting and historical box score analysis), it does not enforce the same for women’s games.
This disparity is often attributed to a desire to protect female athletes from public scrutiny and the societal taboo surrounding women’s body weight. Critics and fans often point out that while the WNBA has moved toward more transparency in these metrics, college rosters continue to maintain a ‘privacy-first’ approach to avoid fueling online harassment or negative body-image commentary.
Audi Crooks’ official school profile at Iowa State Athletics and her NCAA data lists her height at 6’3″ but omits her weight entirely. Regarding this issue, Crooks herself has addressed the external fixation on her body. Speaking to Sports Illustrated on this, Crooks said,
““That was hard for me as a young girl. I think the first time I got posted on ESPN, I was in seventh or eighth grade and I definitely wasn’t developed and I wasn’t really in shape. Seeing that when you’re 13 and there are grown men talking about you and your body instead of the game that I’m playing – that’s crazy. “
She later added a grounded perspective on the negativity, stating,
“There might be 100 comments about my body or about how I look. But then there are 1,000 about my skill set, about my character… no matter what you do, if you’re doing something worth doing, then somebody’s going to hate on you.”
ESPN has never really released any specific official statement explaining why they omit college women’s weights while including WNBA or men’s data. They often defer to the roster information provided by the schools and the NCAA.
For a high-profile player like Crooks, who has faced intense public focus on her physique, the lack of an official weight often shifts the conversation toward speculation. Advocates for the current policy argue that since weight is not necessarily a direct indicator of performance in basketball as compared to height, it only serves to satisfy obsessive interests and provides ammunition for trollish individuals to attack elite athletes.
Audi Crooks Continues to Prove Herself As An Elite Athlete
Audi Crooks is continuing with her sway in college basketball through the 2025-26 season. She is one of the favorites to win the National Player of the Year this season. Crooks leads the nation in scoring with an average of 26.6 PPG while shooting an incredibly efficient 73% from the field.
She has set several historic milestones as well, including a new Iowa State single-game scoring record with 47 points against Indiana in November 2025. Crooks’ on-court success provides a sharp counter-narrative to the public fixation on her physical frame and the lack of official weight data on sites like ESPN.
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