{"id":239557,"date":"2026-04-21T09:44:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/audi-crooks-becomes-the-third-highest-paid-player-in-the-world-without-leaving-college\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T09:44:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:44:33","slug":"audi-crooks-becomes-the-third-highest-paid-player-in-the-world-without-leaving-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/audi-crooks-becomes-the-third-highest-paid-player-in-the-world-without-leaving-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Audi Crooks becomes the third highest-paid player in the world without leaving college"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Audi Crooks<\/strong>, known as <strong>&#8220;<\/strong><strong>Shaquille O&#8217;Neal of women&#8217;s basketball<\/strong>, has decided to change teams in the NCAA.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>21-year-old, 1.91m-tall<\/strong> center is swapping Iowa State for <strong>Oklahoma State<\/strong>, and the US press reports that <strong>the high-profile player has accepted a $1.4 million-a-year NIL offer<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure class=\"ue-c-article__media ue-c-article__media--image ue-c-article--media-icon-m-from-tablet\">\n<div class=\"ue-c-article__media-img-container ue-l-article--expand-edge-right-until-tablet ue-l-article--expand-edge-left-until-tablet\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>With that figure, Audi Crooks will become the third highest paid basketball player in the world, only surpassed by WNBA stars such as <strong>A&#8217;Ja Wilson<\/strong> and <strong>Aliyah Boston<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>This season, Audi Crooks, who has one season of NCAA eligibility remaining, is averaging <strong>25.8 points (64.9% shooting from the field) and 7.7 rebounds<\/strong> to lead the Cyclones to March Madness.<span\/><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"ue-c-article__subheadline\">The origins of Audi Crooks, the &#8220;Shaquille O&#8217;Neal of women&#8217;s basketball&#8221;<\/h2>\n<p>The young woman from Algona, Iowa, who was <strong>born weighing 4.9 kilograms and measuring 71 centimeters<\/strong>, is the daughter of Jimmie Crooks and Michelle Vitzthum, two outstanding high school basketball players.<span\/><\/p>\n<p>Since her teenage years, Audi Crooks, who also competed in track and field and volleyball, has impressed scouts and fans alike with her size, dominance of the game and mobility.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marca.com\/en\/ncaa\/2026\/04\/21\/69e7455ae2704e6c278b45d7.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Audi Crooks, known as &#8220;Shaquille O&#8217;Neal of women&#8217;s basketball, has decided to change teams in the NCAA. The 21-year-old, 1.91m-tall center is swapping Iowa State for Oklahoma State, and the US press reports that the high-profile player has accepted a $1.4 million-a-year NIL offer With that figure, Audi Crooks will become the third highest paid [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6808],"tags":[47548,48562,72121,11366,10048],"class_list":{"0":"post-239557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-aja-wilson-english","9":"tag-aliyah-boston-english","10":"tag-audi-crooks-english","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaam-english"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}