To paraphrase warrior-poet Mike Tyson, you never know how good a fighter is until they’ve been punched in the face. It’s easy to look great against inferior competition. How you respond to your first moment of adversity usually shows how you will progress.

Against Tennessee, Iowa got that punch in the face. 30 turnovers against a suffocating defense.

A late lead that slipped away.

Plays not made when it mattered.

Iowa got plenty of chin-checks from Iowa State too Wednesday. A 12-2 deficit early. A 56-46 deficit late in the third. 31 points and 10 rebounds from a seemingly unstoppable Audi Crooks. Another close game in the final minutes just like Tennessee.

Instead of folding, though, Iowa's players stepped up to the moment. Runs to trim big deficits. Stops after an empty possession. And in the game's final moments, the Hawks came through on both ends to earn a 75-69 victory over #18 Iowa State.

"I learned what I was hoping to learn," Coach Jan Jensen said of her team overcoming the tough moments Iowa faced.

A Hawkeye State again, yes. But a Hawkeye State this year earned through character as much as strong play.

Sydney Affolter was as important as any player not named Clark to Iowa's Final Four run last year. She scored 16 points, a season-high and two off her Hawkeye best. She defended, with a pair of steals and six contested rebounds, including a late o-board that put her on the free throw line and pushed Iowa's lead to five. She did everything Iowa needed, especially in big moments.

"Syd's our 'Dog,'" Jensen said.

This year, though, Affolter hasn't looked much like the Affolter that helped spark Iowa late last season. She came into the game averaging just 6.3 ppg.

"Syd is, in the best way, stubborn," said Jensen. "Syd won't realize that she was out six weeks. So Syd just wanted to be, 'I'm back, I'm good.' What we've been seeing is, she hadn't hit that rhythm. And tonight it kind of tripped over."

Indeed: welcome back to the real Sydney Affolter. For the game, she had 16 points and six rebounds on 6/11 shooting. She also had two steals and, perhaps most importantly of all, zero turnovers.

"Syd really took it into her own hands for a while and just said 'Okay, I've got to make some plays'," said Jensen.

Even more impressive, Affolter's contributions came in important moments. A three with a minute left in the third just after Iowa went down ten. A layup, then an assist in back to back possessions to give Iowa the lead with 4:24 to play. An offensive rebound and drawn foul with 1:25 to go, with Iowa's lead sitting at a still-precarious four.

Those are the plays Affolter made last year that she hasn't made enough so far this season.

"There are really no excuses. I just needed to be move aggressive on the offensive end," Affolter said of her play. "Its just going to keep getting better and better."

Midway through the third quarter, Iowa State held a narrow 46-44 lead, and it was fair to say that Audi Crooks was the difference. Crooks had 23 points at that point, and she was forcing Iowa's guards to play more help defense at the expense of leaving shooters open on the perimeter.

Iowa's posts were facing some in-game adversity from one of the game's great posts.

Then all of a sudden, things shifted. Ava Heiden guarded Crooks late in the third quarter, and found some success. She got a block. She made it hard for Crooks to get position and denied entry passes hard.

In the fourth quarter, Iowa mostly went with Hannah Stuelke against Crooks. "I wanted to give [Crooks] a different look," Jensen said of switch away from Heiden or Addi O'Grady as Crooks' primary defender.

What she lacked in size, Stuelke made up for in strength and athleticism. She fronted Crooks, then used her leaping ability to get up and tip away entry passes. That made Iowa State's guards question their passes and led to some crucial turnovers.

When Iowa went on its late run, Iowa State tried to lean on Crooks in the post. The Cyclones couldn't, largely because of Stuelke.

The transition from high school to college has a way of humbling everyone, and Taylor Stremlow was no exception. After a hot start, an injury to Lucy Olsen forced her into the staring lineup as Iowa's point guard in Cancun.

It didn't go well. Six turnovers against Rhode Island. Three turnovers against only one assist against BYU. Zero points in either game. Then in New York she played just five minutes against Tennessee.

It would be easy for any freshman to get down after that performance. Stremlow didn't. Instead, she brough her typical aggressive energy.

"Audi's one of those posts, it's hard to double her. She has an incredible ability to step and fade and when you bring the double it doesn't affect it," Jensen said. "The one that can be effective is Taylor Stremlow. When she was in front and she [Crooks] was starting to square up, that's when Taylor could get it."

The steal Jensen described came at the 2:35 mark of the fourth quarter, when Iowa led by just four. It was a huge play in keeping momentum in Iowa's corner.

Earlier in the fourth, Stremlow ripped the ball away from Crooks after a rebound, right under the Hawkeyes' basket. The play quickly resulted in a turnover — such is the Taylor Stremlow Experience™ — but it helped get Iowa's crowd back into the game and put more pressure on the visiting Cyclones.

Life handed Aaliyah Guyton a big dose of adversity in the past year.

Partway through her senior year of high school, she suffered an ACL tear that forced her to miss the rest of her season. Her recovery lingered into the summer, then longer. Guyton was only cleared to play a few days before her college debut against Washington State November 24th.

Coming into a ranked rivalry game, Guyton had played 49 total minutes of college basketball. Those 49 minutes were the mixed bag typical of freshman. Guyton has started the year extremely well with her shooting, but had just four assists against 11 turnovers.

When Guyton subbed into the game with 1:09 remaining in a five point game, it would've been easy for her to fade into the background. To let one of Iowa's seniors take the crucial shot.

Instead, she confidently fired when she was open and connected on the game's dagger.

In the final moments of a close game, Iowa could've folded. The players could've tensed up in their big moment and lost another tough one like they did against Tennessee.

Instead, Iowa's players and coaches learned from the bad and overcame it. Their prize was a ranked win and bragging rights for another year against their in-state rival.