The Iowa Women’s Basketball team boarded the flight home from Portland Sunday night with the feeling that they could compete with anyone in the country. Sure, they were disappointed they couldn’t hang on to beat #3 UConn, but they showed they belonged on the big stage with the big names.

Roughly 96 hours later several Hawkeyes quietly filed into the media room at Carver-Hawkeye Arena following a 94-81 loss to #12 North Carolina State in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. The frustration was palpable, and Lisa Bluder closed with some strong words.

“We want to be there too (with the top teams) and we’re not right now. We’re just not. So, we have a choice, do we want to get better? Are we going to put in the effort to get better or just going to stay an average team or maybe an above average team?”

The defense and rebounding that many thought (or hoped) would be better has shown flashes of improvement early this season, but tonight was a step in the wrong direction for the Hawkeyes. The Wolfpack shot 55.4% from the floor, including 61.1% in the final quarter.

“We didn’t play defense,” said Caitlin Clark. “I think it’s pretty simple. We could have scored 90 points and we still would have lost the game. It comes down to defense and we know that. No matter who it is, if we let them score that many points, we’re not going to win the basketball game.”

Clark herself poured on 45 points by herself and despite the many highlights circulating social media of her performance, she knows that when she scores that many points it doesn’t usually end well. Iowa is now just 1-3 in games against Power 6 teams where Caitlin scores 40+ points.

“I think whenever I score 40 points, we lose, so it’s not something I want to do,” said Clark. “We could have run our offense better...Only ten (team) assists, that’s not Iowa basketball.”

The first quarter started out on the right foot for the Hawkeyes. They got out to a 17-9 lead and cleared 10/11 defensive rebound chances. Hannah Stuelke came off the bench and contributed six points in the opening quarter, but four straight points to end the quarter from NC State had the score a little closer that it felt like it should have been.

Over the next two quarters, the game flipped. The Wolfpack started to get easy baskets and everyone, but Caitlin Clark struggled to get going. In the second and third quarter NC State shot 19/31 from the floor, while Iowa was 11/25 with ten turnovers. The game headed to the fourth quarter with the Hawkeyes trailing 63-53.

However, Caitlin Clark ripped off 11 points in the first 107 seconds of the final period, including three straight three-pointers. The Carver crowd was going crazy and trying their best to help the Hawkeyes comeback, but it was all for not.

“I wish we would have given them a little bit more to cheer about,” said Coach Bluder. “They were waiting, they wanted it so badly and we didn’t give them a whole lot to cheer about, especially on the defensive end.”

Lost in the heroic attempts of Caitlin Clark was the fact that NC State had more answers than the back of a high school math book. Saniya Rivers and Diamond Johnson hit big shot after big shot to keep Iowa at bay. They combined for 44 points on 17/23 shooting from the floor.

“I kept waiting. She’d make an unbelievable shot and the crowds into it, and I was thinking ‘oh, here we go,’” said NC State HC Wes Moore. “Then one of our kids would step up…Saniya needed that tonight; she hadn’t hit a three this year in a game and then she comes out and looks like she’s got all the confidence in the world after she sees one go in…Diamond can take over a game and she kind of did that down the stretch.”

The Hawkeyes made nine field goals in the final quarter and NC State answered with a basket on the other end an impressive eight times. None was larger than the Diamond Johnson three pointer with 6:16 to play. It answered a Kate Martin three pointer and pushed the Wolfpack lead to 75-67. Iowa never got the lead below six points the rest of the way and NC State was able to hang on for the 94-81 victory.

“I think we didn’t have a sense of urgency (on defense) and I think it was pretty obvious that we didn’t have that sense of urgency,” said McKenna Warnock. “There was just kind of a weird dullness on defense, and we need to figure it out…We were just kind of off key the entire night.”

Caitlin Clark finished the night with 45 points on 16/28 shooting, but there wasn’t much help around her. The rest of the team shot 11/31 from the floor, including 3/13 from behind the arc, while Monika Czinano was held to just five points on four shot attempts. You have to go all the way back to January 26th of 2020 to find a game where Czinano scored less than five points.

“This was a totally different defense than what UConn did to us, and I don’t know why we couldn’t get her the ball tonight,” said Bluder. “Why can we not pass the ball to a post when the post defense is on her back? It’s maddening.”

The answer is that NC State just did a really good job defending Czinano. While they guarded her from behind, they were physical with her and when she did catch the ball, they did not make it easy on her. Even though Coach Wes Moore swears the plan was to limit both Caitlin and Monika, it seemed the plan was to limit Monika’s impact on the game and either force Caitlin to score 70 points on her own or have someone else step up and score like the UConn game. If that truly was the plan, Wes Moore wouldn’t say it, but it worked well.

The Wolfpack on the other hand were very balanced in their scoring. Diamond Johnson and Saniya Rivers each had 22 points, while Jakia Brown-Turner added 17 points. Jada Boyd (12) and Camille Hobby (10) also scored in double figures. It was the first time this season that NC State had a scorer surpass 20 points.

“This is early in our year and one loss, one win, that doesn’t define you,” said Caitlin Clark. “We could have played better, we should have really won the game, but at the end of the day, you just come back to work and get better. Last year, we had our ups and down, so I think having that experience (is helpful going forward).”

The Hawkeyes will look to turn things around on Sunday when they travel to Madison for a matchup against Wisconsin. The Badgers come in with a 3-6 record, but seem to be showing signs of improvement after going 8-21 a year ago. They dropped a close one to now 8-1 Florida State 92-87 in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. Tipoff is set for 1:00pm and the game will be streamed on BTN+.