Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, Lisa Bluder react to loss at Indiana
Star Caitlin Clark and head coach Lisa Bluder react to Iowa’s loss at Indiana.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Iowa women’s basketball suffered its biggest margin of defeat this season, falling to Indiana 86-69 at Assembly Hall on Thursday.
Iowa star Caitlin Clark scored 24 points. Clark, though, wasn’t very efficient, shooting 8-of-26 from the field and 3-of-16 from deep. Besides Clark, Kate Martin had 19 points and Hannah Stuelke had 10. Besides that trio, no other individual Hawkeye had more than six.
As a team, Iowa shot 38.8 from the field.
The discrepancy from the three-point line was a major factor in Thursday’s outcome. Indiana shot 9-of-21 (42.9%) from deep. Meanwhile, Iowa shot just 5-of-28 (17.9%) from long range.
Indiana’s Sara Scalia had 25 and shot 3-of-8 from deep. Yarden Garzon contributed 15 and went 3-of-5 from deep. During Iowa’s win over Indiana earlier this season, those two combined for 17 points on 7-of-19 from the field
On Thursday, Indiana star Mackenzie Holmes also added 24 points.
But part of Tuesday’s struggles was also the fact that Indiana outmatched Iowa’s intensity. The Hoosiers played with a physicality that Iowa was unable to rival.
This isn’t to understate the difficulty of pulling out a win in Assembly Hall. Indiana, though coming off a 20-point road loss leading up to Thursday, is still a good team. And playing in such a raucous environment makes the task even more arduous.
But the extent to which Iowa looked out of sorts was not encouraging.
Iowa struggled mightily in the first half. Caitlin Clark, who scored 20 of Iowa’s 33 points, did not get much help around her. Indiana shot 40% from deep, while Iowa shot just 21.4%. Another concern was Iowa’s lack of intensity. The Hoosiers played with much more of an edge than the Hawkeyes.
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Iowa, trailing 44-33 at halftime, faced a tough task ahead.
Less than two minutes into the third quarter, Iowa’s deficit ballooned to 16.
The Hawkeyes finally showed some signs of life, going on a 6-0 run to cut their deficit to 11. But Indiana’s Sydney Parrish answered by hitting threes on back-to-back Hoosier offensive possessions.
Iowa, though, continued to fight back. At the end of the third quarter, they had whittled the deficit to eight points.
But Indiana shut the door, outscoring Iowa by nine in the fourth quarter. In the second and fourth quarters combined, the Hoosiers outscored the Hawkeyes by 19 points.
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Iowa’s path to winning a Big Ten title — or at least a share of it — took a major hit on Tuesday. The Hawkeyes, now 12-3 in the conference, are now behind Ohio State and Indiana in the Big Ten standings.
Ohio State is atop the group with a 14-1 conference mark. Indiana, who has played one more Big Ten game than Iowa, is now 13-3 in the conference. Iowa is 12-3.
Iowa does not have a lot of time to surge ahead, especially with Ohio State. The Hawkeyes have three more games in the regular season: Illinois (home), Minnesota (away) and Ohio State (home). The Buckeyes now control their own destiny and can capture an outright Big Ten championship title by winning out.
To even have a chance at running the table, Iowa needs to win out and get help elsewhere.
This magnifies some of Iowa’s collapses earlier this season. The Hawkeyes blew fourth-quarter leads on the road against both Ohio State and Nebraska this season. That made their margin for error so small, which came back to bite them in a game like this, where losing in a challenging environment could derail their Big Ten title chances.
When it comes to the Big Ten title race, Thursday might be a blow that Iowa can’t recover from.
Follow Tyler Tachman on X @Tyler_T15, contact via email at [email protected]
Christine Lake is a sports fanatic who lives and breathes athletics. With an extensive background in sports journalism, he covers everything from major league championships to grassroots sports events. When she’s not on the field or at the stadium, you’ll find Christine coaching youth sports teams.
