No. 5 Iowa 77, No. 18 Kansas State 70: Getting One Back

The fifth-ranked Iowa women's basketball team avenged its first and only loss of the early season by dispatching Kansas State, 77-70, in the final of the Gulf Coast Showcase on Sunday night. KSU had defeated Iowa 65-58 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena just 10 days prior.

Caitlin Clark led all scorers with 32 points in the win, and unlike the previous loss to Kansas State, Clark didn't shoot her team out of the game in the process. Clark scored 17 of Iowa's 36 second-half points in the win, including four three-pointers after the break. Clark averaged 27.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 6.7 assists in the three-game tourney, earning the Most Outstanding Player award for her efforts.

Molly Davis finished with 13 points, four rebounds and four assists in the win; Kate Martin was the only other Hawkeye in double figures, registering a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

1. Déjà vu? Iowa doesn't know her. All excuses granted if fans started to have flashbacks to November 16th around the middle of the fourth quarter; KSU went on an 11-0 run, jarring a 10-point Hawkeye lead into a 68-67 deficit with 2:44 left in the game. After the 12-0 run to finish the previous upset, it started to look like Kansas State just knew how to shut down Iowa late.

Faced with another opportunity to wilt, the Hawkeyes instead ramped up their intensity and took control of the game.

Martin scored on a driving lineup to retake the lead for Iowa, then a Clark three-pointer pushed the Hawkeye lead back to a more breathable four points. KSU never had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead after Clark's bomb with 1:49 left — though Clark would yet leave the door cracked. More on that in a second.

This team is heavy on experience, to put it mildly; Clark is a fourth-year senior who owns the Iowa career scoring mark... and also the second-youngest starter for the Hawkeyes on Sunday, with sixth-year seniors Martin and Gabbie Marshall and fifth-year senior Davis providing extra seniority.

Head coach Lisa Bluder frequently cites that experience as one of the team's biggest strengths, and it was plainly obvious in Sunday's win. Even with the team's legs starting to give late, as evidenced by jumpers missing short with regularity in the fourth quarter, Iowa found the energy to dominate defensively and slam the door on a quality foe.

2. Caitlin Clark steps up — mostly. Iowa's all-everything guard scored nine of her game-high 32 points in the fourth quarter, and the Hawkeyes needed all of them; Clark's two consecutive triples late in the fourth quarter helped thwart a late KSU run that had pushed the lead as low as one point after Iowa led by double digits earlier in the final quarter.

Clark's shooting wasn't sensational overall, but it didn't have to be; she just had to shoot better than her 9-for-32, 2-for-16 line from ten days ago. And hey: 10-for-25 and 7-for-16 from deep is something any coach would take from a star like Clark, to say nothing of five rebounds and six assists — one of three Hawkeyes with six, in fact, as the Iowa staff threw a bevy of looks at the Wildcat defense to generate shots for Clark.

Better yet, Iowa's often-irascible star was able to check the frustrations from her last game against KSU and the last two nights' battles (Clark was T'd up and sat early against IPFW). Clark's body language wasn't exactly muted Sunday, but it was more focused and less demonstrative, and when Clark is that kind of dialed-in, she's particularly dangerous.

One oddity: Clark missed three free throws in the last minute of play — two in one trip to the line, and the back half of the next — twice keeping the game at two possessions for longer than it needed to be. Clark made the rest of her free throws on the night, but missing on multiple opportunities to slam the door shut is downright confusing to see from Clark.

3. Maybe Kansas State is just really, really good. With a two-game series split, both games going down to the last minute, it sure seems like Iowa and Kansas State are evenly matched foes. That's a pretty remarkable statement about a KSU team that missed the NCAA tournament last year and came into the season unranked*.

*Worth noting that KSU was the de facto 26th-ranked team in the preseason AP Poll — but unranked is unranked.

Every warning Bluder gave about the Wildcats (before both games) came true, though; they're long, physical, and relentless on defense, and 6'6" center Ayoka Lee is going to create serious problems for most of the women tasked with defending her.

Certainly Hawkeye centers Sharon Goodman and Addison O'Grady will be happy to not see Lee again. Lee put both bigs in foul trouble Sunday, fouling Goodman out in just 18 minutes of action, en route to an 18-point, seven-rebound performance in the middle for the Wildcats.

Indeed, fouling Lee might have been Iowa's best strategy, though frontcourt fouls were limited with Hannah Stuelke missing her second-straight game with a leg injury; Lee was just 2-for-6 at the charity stripe, a stark contrast to her 8-for-11 from the field. Bluder will undoubtedly be happy to see Stuelke return to health soon, as there's a pretty substantial gap between 15 fouls to give in the frontcourt and 10 (to say nothing of what Stuelke also brings to the court on offense, of course).

Kansas State has a pretty legitimate claim to being Iowa's toughest non-conference opponent this season, which is lofty territory with the Hawkeyes also facing fellow 2023 Final Four participant Virginia Tech on a semi-neutral floor in Charlotte.

The Wildcats came into the week ranked No. 16, and they beat No. 18 UNC on a neutral floor and took No. 5 Iowa — a team they've already beaten — down to the last minute on that same neutral floor before running out of gas. Doesn't sound like a team that should move down in Monday's rankings, does it?

With those two fierce battles against the top-5 Hawkeyes, KSU must be able to look at the Big 12 as eminently winnable. The Wildcats are probably one consistent scorer away from being Big, Big Trouble come March, but good defensive teams are more liable to catch fire offensively than vice versa.

So in that case, we're not making it a prediction or anything, but — BUT — if things shake out a certain way, these two teams just might have a trilogy to finish off come late March or so.