IOWA CITY — Everyone's got a plan, boxer Mike Tyson once famously said, until they get punched in the mouth. Caitlin Clark took a left fist to the nose Saturday, then went to work.
Clark led all scorers with 27 points as top-seeded Iowa opened up its 2024 NCAA tournament run with a 91-65 victory over feisty 16-seed Holy Cross on Saturday afternoon. Senior forward Kate Martin scored 15 points and added 14 rebounds in the win, pacing Iowa through a low-octane first half.
Guard Bronagh Power-Cassidy led the Crusaders with 19 points, though 17 came in the first half, and she was responsible for the inadvertent punch that stung Clark's nose.
The Deep Three
1. Caitlin Clark survives and advances. To 99% of mortal basketball players, 27 points, eight rebounds and 10 assists is a career night. To Clark, it's a low-key day. You've heard that refrain before.
Unlike most of the small schools that wander into Clark's path on the Carver-Hawkeye Arena parquet, though, Holy Cross was up for the challenge, especially in a contentious first half; Holy Cross led 11-10 at the five-minute mark of the first quarter, and still had the game within single digits until a Sydney Affolter three-pointer with 5:05 left in the half pushed the lead (back) to 12.
"They were a really good basketball," Hannah Stuelke said. "I think the 16 seed was kind of rude to them. They came out and played their hearts out, and I love to see them."
Key to Holy Cross staying close for that long: another slow start for Clark, who started just 2-for-11 from the floor before finishing 6-for-8 and putting the Crusaders away in style. Indeed, Clark didn't even hit double-digit scoring until her three-pointer pushed Iowa in front 41-27, late in the second quarter, and Iowa was a +5 with Clark off the floor in the first half.
"I'm so happy when we take Caitlin out and we go on those runs," Bluder said. "It really shows the rest of the team that, yes, you can play without Caitlin Clark on the floor. And I think that builds confidence for those guys going forward."
For as starstruck as Holy Cross' players were prior to Saturday's game, they gave Clark and the Hawkeyes everything they could handle early — including the aforementioned inadvertent closed-fist punch to Clark's schnozz from Power-Cassidy, who got an intentional foul for the misdeed.
"It was totally unintentional," Power-Cassidy said after the game. "I broke my hand in our playoff game at [Boston University] in our final, so when I was moving, I was just very conscious of keeping it out of too much contact and unfortunately it just happened that way."
Though the replay took on Zapruder-film levels of scrutiny on social media during the game, neither Power-Cassidy nor Clark considered it a big deal afterwards.
"She didn't do that on purpose," Clark said. "She came up and said sorry, but honestly, I'm totally okay." Clark called the hit a "stinger" on her nose and said she's lucky it wasn't worse.
In addition to apologizing to Clark privately, Power-Cassidy apologized in her postgame conference as well, acknowledging the visual evidence. "It always looks terrible when somebody gets hit in the face," she said.
Words to live by, really.
2. The team can manage without Hannah Stuelke, too. For the attention given to Molly Davis' knee since her injury against Ohio State three weeks ago, Iowa has managed her absence about as well as can be expected; Iowa is 4-0 since Davis' injury, and only the Nebraska game in the Big Ten Championship was competitive into the fourth quarter.
Being down a starter is not an enviable situation, though, and that matter was compounded after Hannah Stuelke went to the bench at the 6:41 mark of the second quarter, having committed her second personal foul — and then stayed on the bench for the rest of the game.
With Stuelke out, Iowa had to depend on its bevy of backup bigs, and Addison O'Grady was the primary beneficiary. Though fouls limited O'Grady's court time to 14 minutes, she made the most of it with 14 points and five rebounds on 7-for-9 shooting, along with an emphatic block.
O'Grady's step forward was especially welcome to head coach Lisa Bluder, who has long bemoaned a lack of consistency from her backup bigs this season.
"We were 11-for-16 from our four post players tonight," Bluder said. "That's pretty good, that's consistent."
In addition to O'Grady's 14 points, Sharon Goodman went 2-of-3 from the floor and scored five points, while A.J. Ediger added four points on 2-of-2 shooting.
O'Grady said she heard at halftime that Stuelke would be out for the game, and she and the bigs took full advantage of the opportunity.
"Obviously, it's a big confidence builder," O'Grady said. "We'll need all of us post players to step up in the tournament, I know we're going to play some bigger posts later in the tournament, so it's good to get that experience and touches in now."
I think [O'Grady] played really well for us, and we're going to need that down the line," Bluder said. "We're going to need her height, and we're going to need her confidence."
3. The Gabbie March-all Effect is real. Gabbie Marshall's resurgence on offense continued con gusto Saturday, with 11 points on 3-for-7 shooting from deep, but like her game-sealing block against Nebraska in the Big Ten Tournament two weeks ago, Marshall's defense made the lasting impact.
"We switched [Marshall] onto [Power-Cassidy]," Bluder said. "I thought Gabbie Marshall did a really good job keeping the ball out of her hands."
Indeed, after a volcanic start where Power-Cassidy had 17 of her team's 27 points, she was only able to take four shots in the second half with Marshall chasing her around the perimeter, finishing 1-for-4 in the half as the Crusaders' offense bottomed out.
"When Gabbie's on, it really lights a fire under all of us," Martin said. "When she's hitting her shots and playing with passion and just sticking her tongue out or cheering, it really lights a fire under all of our butts."
“We needed to get a hand in on defense and increase our intensity," Affolter said. "We started breaking up passing lanes and forcing them to take more shots guarded or off-balance in the later quarters."
For as much as Bluder and Marshall's teammates laud her defense, though, the senior guard's three-pointers are pure jet fuel for the Iowa crowd — and she hit her first two attempts Saturday to get the crowd roaring early.
"It's always good to see the first one go down," Marshall said. "I think that gives you a lot of confidence to keep shooting for the rest of the game."
Marshall's 11 points pale next to Clark's 27 — and Iowa's 24-point margin of victory — but Marshall's teammates say they respond to her heroics as forcefully as the Iowa fanbase does.
"I think [Marshall] especially, when she sees that first one go through, she knows it's a good night," Bluder said. "She's very confident, and the whole team feels that way."
And One
Iowa's opponent Monday will be 8-seed West Virginia, who dispatched 9-seed Princeton 63-53 in late action Saturday. The Hawkeyes and Mountaineers are set to tip off at 7 PM CT on ESPN.
