25

That’s how many times in a row that Iowa Women’s Basketball had beaten the Wisconsin Badgers coming into the day.

26

That’s the number the streak was extended to as the Hawkeyes left the Kohl Center this afternoon.

The Hawkeyes used a 32-14 second quarter and a fourth quarter 27-11 run to lead them to a 102-71 victory Sunday afternoon. The win helped relieve some frustration after Thursday’s loss to NC State.

“We can’t go back in time and change anything that happened. You can only learn and grow from it,” said Caitlin Clark. “I think it’s just good for everybody to see the ball go in the hoop and have that bounce back game. I think that tells you a lot about this team. We’re resilient.”

The game started with both teams trading some runs. Five straight points from McKenna Warnock capped an 8-0 Iowa run to make it 15-7 Hawkeyes. The Badgers battled back, and a Maty Wilke three-pointer tied the game at 17. McKenna Warnock knocked down her third three-pointer at the end of the quarter to give Iowa a 25-20 lead. Warnock and Caitlin Clark combined for 23 of Iowa’s 25 points in the opening frame.

The Hawkeyes put their foot on the gas pedal in the second quarter and opened up a big lead. The Hawkeyes shot 11/14 (78.6%) from the floor, while they held the Badgers to 2/12 (16.7%) and forced five turnovers that turned into ten points. Iowa took a 57-34 lead into halftime.

The Hawkeyes turned it over seven times in a somewhat sloppy third quarter and Wisconsin was able to close the gap to 75-60 early in the fourth quarter. Back-to-back 3pt makes from Molly Davis and Kate Martin forced Wisconsin HC Marisa Moseley to take a timeout, but it was far too late. Iowa was up 88-63 and rolled from there to the final buzzer.

The Iowa defense held Julie Pospisilova and Avery LaBarbera to a combined 13 points on 2/21 shooting, including 0/9 from three-point range. The Hawkeyes said that was a focus coming into the game.

“We knew those were key players for sure, especially number 5 (Pospisilova). She was all over our scoring report,” said Caitlin Clark. “I thought Kate did a good job on her…I thought overall, our defense was really good. There were some times where we had some lapses and we know that’s an area we can get better on, just our consistency overall and keeping our defensive level the same the entire game.”

“I thought we did a really good job of communicating, talking where the switches were. They were running a lot of different sets, a lot of different plays, where switching action was important.”

On the offensive end, Caitlin Clark followed up her 45-point game against NC State with a 22 point, 10 rebound, 10 assist triple double performance. It is the seventh triple double of her career, which breaks former Hawkeye Samantha Logic’s Big Ten record for most triple doubles in a career.

“Sam Logic was a tremendous player for Coach Bluder, so to be able to pass somebody that I watched when I was a little kid, it’s a huge honor,” said Clark. “None of that happens without my teammates. You can’t get ten assists if your teammates don’t make ten shots.”

Across the board there were solid contributions for the Hawkeyes. Monika Czinano had 18 points on 9/10 shooting and eight rebounds. Molly Davis had 13 points on 5/5 shooting, including three 3pt makes, while McKenna Warnock had 13 points on 3/5 shooting from behind the arc in her final trip to her hometown of Madison.

“We missed her (Czinano) the last couple of games and some of that was self-inflicted, some of that was us not getting her the ball. I will tell you she was under the weather a little bit in the last game,” said Bluder. “I was just thrilled to see Monika playing with the joy that she usually plays with.”

“It’s always nice to come back to your hometown. Everyone loves doing that,” said McKenna Warnock. “I think there might have been a couple of (Monona Grove) Silver Eagle fans. There were a couple of those signs with Silver Eagles on it. That was pretty cool to see.”

While everyone loves to see Caitlin Clark shooting from the logo and scoring 45 points, the Hawkeyes are a better team when there is consistent scoring from multiple options. Today, Clark and Czinano combined for 40 points, but 62 points came from other players. 11 players scored and seven players had 6+ points.

“We wanted to go 1-0 in the Big Ten. We wanted to execute, we wanted to play a clean game, just a fundamentally sound game,” said Bluder. “I think we did that tonight and that’s what I’m most happy about.”

With the win, the Hawkeyes move to 6-3 on the season and now the next game on the docket is one that players and fans have been waiting for since the schedule was released. The top ten Iowa State Cyclones will travel to Iowa City for a highly anticipated ranked match-up on Wednesday night. The game is at 6:00pm and will be televised on ESPN2.

Keep on eye on HawkeyeReport.com for expanded coverage of the CyHawk match-up.