Status check: still dancing.
After a competitive first 20 minutes, Iowa blew the game open in the second half, pushing its lead as high as 40 points and cruising to a 92-57 win in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Freshman center Ava Heiden scored 13 points in the first half en route to a team-high 15 on the day, and All-Big Ten senior point guard Lucy Olsen added 12 points and a career-high 12 assists in the win.
"I couldn't be more proud of this team, and more grateful that they stayed together," said Iowa head coach Jan Jensen. "To get to the Round of 32, boy, I'm so pleased and happy for them."
For Murray State, All-MVC star Katelyn Young suffered an apparent ankle injury early in the third quarter, and Iowa had little problem blowing out the Racers thereafter.
THE DEEP THREE
1. Runnin' and Heiden. Jensen's first foray into the Big Dance started inauspiciously, with star forward Hannah Stuelke saddled with two fouls in the first two minutes of the first quarter. Stuelke found herself summarily stapled to the bench, and in came... not senior Addi O'Grady, but freshman Ava Heiden, coming off her star turn in the Big Ten Tournament.
"I thought if Ava could hold serve and Addi could get some minutes, we could really gain some confidence, for Monday night but also next year for Ava," said Jensen.
Jensen's backup shakeup — which Heiden said she wasn't expecting — turned out to be a masterstroke. Far from merely "holding serve" on the scoreboard, Heiden immediately established her dominance in the paint, with nine points in the first quarter and 13 points and six rebounds by halftime — both team-highs in the first half.
"I did not [know the plan]," said Heiden. "I've just been working in the dark for this opportunity, and when my name is called I'm always ready to go out there and do what I can for the team."
None of Heiden's teammates are surprised by the spike in her production either.
"[Heiden]'s been working every day; you've just got to trust the process and trust the work you're putting in," said Olsen. "She's been killing it in practice, so we know what she has. It might be crazy for the world to see, but we know what she has in her bag."
"She's really quick and hard to handle," said Stuelke. "Even guarding her in practice — I can't. She always steps up and leans in. She's been amazing for us."
Heiden is still a freshman, though, and she picked up her second and third fouls in quick succession late in the second quarter — enough to leave her far behind Stuelke (14) and O'Grady (8) in second-half minutes.
"Foul trouble" is relative, especially for backups and especially in the postseason. So while Heiden's three fouls limited her to four second-half minutes and two points, that only meant Stuelke could go to work instead — and work she did, logging all 11 points, six rebounds and two assists in the second half as Iowa, well, outraced Murray State.
"It's unfortunate that Hannah got those two quick fouls, and I was like, 'what kind of game are we going to have here?'," said assistant coach Raina Harmon. "And we did get into a little bit of foul trouble. But credit to our bench who came in — Ava Heiden came in swinging right away."
2. Ref Show: canceled. Fans who made the trek down to Norman, Oklahoma for the game were welcomed to the Big Dance with a hail of whistles, as the referees — perhaps misinformed as to whom, exactly, said fans came to see — called seven fouls in the first five-and-a-half minutes of game time, with Stuelke bearing the brunt of the early attention.
"I was like, 'oh geez, this is not a start'," said Jensen of Stuelke's two quick whistles.
But if the early foul trouble was supposed to limit Iowa's effectiveness, nobody got that memo to the Hawkeyes' bench, who scored 23 of the Hawkeyes' 42 points in the first half and 41-of-92 for the game.
Those 23 first-half points? All from the vaunted 2024 freshman class.
Heiden's 13 led all scorers before the break, while fellow freshmen Taylor Stremlow added eight and Aaliyah Guyton finished off the first half with a mid-range jumper to push the Hawkeyes' lead to 42-30.
READ MORE: Iowa 92, Murray State 57: Offensive Explosion, Freshman Step Up
"We had all that foul trouble before the half, and we went up 12," said Jensen. "I thought that was really great for those young kids to hold serve."
The Hawkeyes have leaned on their depth for most of the season, but in tournament games — especially against mid-major teams — that depth is downright obligated to prove its mettle. and that's exactly what Iowa did Saturday, whistles be damned.
"We knew going in that they didn't have too deep of a bench, so if we could run on them as much as they run on us, we could take advantage of a few things," said Olsen.
And while Iowa's bench provided a majority of the team's scoring in the first half, perhaps its better contribution was just plain playing time, with every healthy team member getting on the floor and scoring by the last few minutes of the game. End-of-bench subs Jada Gyamfi, AJ Ediger and Callie Levin all came in by the 4:32 mark to help the Hawkeyes coast to a happy, healthy win.
"When you're playing in a tournament like this, where you've got quick turnarounds, whenever you're able to get out to a big lead and get some depth on the floor, get your starters some rest, that's always going to bode well going into that next game," said Harmon. "Also, you don't have to 'show your hand' too much — you don't have to call a lot of plays or consistently change your defenses."
With just a couple minutes left in the first half, though, Iowa didn't appear to have that sort of luxury available. Olsen picked up her own third foul late in the second quarter as Iowa was protecting a fragile five-point lead at 35-30, and the stage seemed set for the Racers' upset bid to pick up in earnest.
Instead, Iowa ripped off 16 consecutive points between the second and third quarters, starting with a Taylor McCabe three-pointer, and hit nine straight shots amid a 30-10 third-quarter shellacking that effectively ended the game.
"We all just clicked and locked in together," said Olsen. "We knew they had really good rotation on defense, so we knew one more [pass] was going to be open, and we stayed with that."
To the referees' credit, once the game was effectively out of hand, the micromanaging via whistle stopped as well, with the teams whistled for a combined 11 fouls in the second half. Some of it was a matter of mercy — Murray State was visibly disinterested in the game by the fourth quarter — but some was also just plain common sense and not rewarding either team for cynical, foul-generating plays.
The game was decided on the floor, where it ought to be, and Iowa was demonstrably the better team there Saturday.
3. Defense wins tourney games. Murray State came into Saturday's matchup as the most prolific scoring team in the nation, averaging 87.8 points per game to Iowa's 74.6.
As has been the case all season, Iowa's defense helped the Hawkeyes establish control of the game, holding the Racers to a season-low 57 points and forcing 15 turnovers, including six by leading scorer Halli Poock, who scored 15 for the Racers but missed all eight of her three-pointers.
"That was the game plan," said Olsen. "We knew they were a really good shooting team, we knew they liked to get down the court fast and get their shot, so transition defense was really important. Getting a hand on their threes, making them take tough twos."
On that front, mission most certainly accomplished.
Murray State made just 5-of-30 three-pointers, and even that was deceptively productive, as the Racers were 2-for-25 from behind the arc until midway through the fourth quarter, as chips-and-salsa time had begun in earnest. That's tremendous defensive production against any team, much less one that averaged over 10 threes per game in the regular season — third-best in the nation.
"Our team was really locked into the scout from the beginning," said Harmon. "Their goal is to make 12 threes, and you look at what we were able to do defensively, hold them to five threes, shooting 16% — that was the game right there."
Young's injury made the rest of the game a formality, but she was just 1-for-7 from the field before going down, and by the time fellow Racer forward Ava Learn fouled out in the third quarter, Murray State was — at that point — without a single player available who had recorded an assist in the game to that point.
"Defense has really been an emphasis for us," said Stuelke. "Not just for this game but for all the games. Knowing our scout, knowing what we had to do to stop their offense. Executing that was really important for us, and we did."
Iowa's defense simply smothered Murray State, jumping passing lanes and attacking rebounders as soon as they brought the ball down to force loose balls and turnovers. The 11-seeded Racers couldn't return the favor either, as Iowa logged 28 assists — a program record for tournament games.
Murray State is, in all likelihood, the last overmatched team Iowa will face in the tournament. But defense doesn't require a lesser opponent to be disruptive — in fact, it's just as often an equalizer for the lesser opponent, a role Iowa should expect to play for however long its tourney run lasts.
But last it will, at least for 48 more hours.
"It feels pretty surreal," said Heiden. "It's weird that our season could end overnight, but I think that gives us the motivation and grit to go through and attack every moment and every game."
Iowa will face 3-seed Oklahoma on the Sooners' home court on Monday in the round of 32. The game is scheduled to tip off at 3 PM CT and will be televised on ESPN.
