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Iowa Women's Basketball pulls away from Bowling Green, wins a fifth straight game

On3 imageby: Kyle Huesmann12/02/23HuesmannKyle

At the end of the Iowa women’s basketball intro video that they play before starting lineups are announced, the words “Welcome to the Show” flash across the screen. Today, it was like an NBA game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena with celebrities occuping the courtside seats. The Hawkeyes welcomed former WNBA star Sue Bird and actor Jason Sudeikis (aka Ted Lasso) to the show. They had courtside seats and watched the fourth-ranked Hawkeyes take down Bowling Green 99-65 for a fifth straight victory.

“I just think it’s awesome, the platform that we have, that we’re lucky enough to have people recognize us like them and want to come watch us play,” said Sydney Affolter. “Sue Bird is amazing and such a good figure to look up to. I think it’s so cool that they wanted to come out and watch us today.”

While those two garnered a lot of attention, there was still a game to be played between the Hawkeyes and a pesky Falcons team that made the WNIT Final Four last season. Despite a five day break between their win over Kansas State and today’s game, Lisa Bluder’s squad came out on fire. Three different players knocked down a three-pointer in the early going, including two from Gabbie Marshall and Iowa jumped out to a 21-5 lead through just five minutes.

“(They) tried a diamond and one against Caitlin, well other people are going to score on this team and that’s what I love,” said head coach Lisa Bluder. “We’re seeing different things from different people and it doesn’t matter. We can attack in different ways.”

The Falcons plan to try to limit Caitlin Clark did not go entirely according to plan. In the first half, Clark had just 12 points on 5/10 shooting, but five other players combined to shoot 16/21 (76.2%) from the floor. Iowa went into the locker room for halftime with a 48-32 lead.

Although the lead was comfortable, Bowling Green was able to hang around into the third quarter. A pair of baskets from forward Sophie Dziekan cut the lead to 59-44 with 4:53 remaining in the third quarter. The Hawkeyes weren’t in danger of losing, but they were well short of the pregame -29.5 point spread. Until they went on a run to turn the game into a blowout. Iowa went on a 13-3 run to end the quarter to make it 72-47.

“I think it was our defensive intensity. We just let our defense flow into our offense and we were getting buckets in transition,” said Kate Martin. “We knew we needed to step it up on defense and we let that translate into some of our points and that helped.”

Down the stretch, with subs on the floor, it was Jada Gyamfi with a pair of layups and a three-pointer. That about summed up the whole game. Contributions from everywhere. Five Hawkeyes scored in double figures, as Iowa picked up their fifth straight victory by a final score of 99-65. Inside the three-point line they converted 36 of 46 attempts for an incredible 78.2% two-point shooting percentage.

Despite the best efforts of the Bowling Green defense, Caitlin Clark finished with 24 points on 10/20 shooting, as well as seven rebounds and 11 assists. Kate Martin put up 17 points and five rebounds, while Sydney Affolter (14 pts) and Addi O’Grady (10 pts) put up season-highs for scoring. Molly Davis also added five points, four rebounds and four assists. Even with Hannah Stuelke out of the lineup for the third straight game, the Hawkeyes continued to move along with no issues.

“I’m so proud of this team. We’ve overcome Hannah’s injury, foul trouble, different starting lineups and we just keep responding,” said Bluder. “That’s the sign of a real mature team.”

After pulling down eight rebounds in the first half, but with no points on the board, center Sharon Goodman got the ball rolling in the second half. She converted 5/6 field goal attempts and pulled down three more rebounds to give herself a double-double, 12 points and 11 rebounds.

Coming into the game, Bowling Green was ranked 21st in the country in three-point shooting at 39.4%, but the Iowa defense held the Falcons to 8/31 (25.0%) on the day. In the rebounding department, the Hawkeyes held a 44-27 advantage, including 34-14 on the defensive glass. Iowa also assisted on 29 of their 42 made field goals.

Up Next, the Hawkeyes hit the road and travel to Ames for the Cy-Hawk matchup against Iowa State on Wednesday. Tip off is set for 6:00pm CT at Hilton Coliseum and will be televised on ESPN2.

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