No. 10 Iowa 80, Nebraska 76: Hanging On

On Monday, Iowa beat #2 Ohio State in Columbus. It was one of the biggest victories in program history. Next Thursday, Iowa will play #10 Maryland at home in another huge game for the Big Ten Title race.

In between those two monster games, Iowa faced Nebraska at home today. Nebraska is a good team. The Huskers are projected to make the NCAA Tournament and have wins over a couple NCAA Tournament teams including Maryland. But even though Nebraska is a good team and this is a rivalry game, it also felt like a trap game of sorts. Most of Iowa’s media this week has been about the Ohio State win. The upcoming Maryland game is certainly on everyone’s mind.

That’s just a reality of the tough Big Ten schedule this year. It’s possible to play an NCAA Tournament team and have games before and after that are much bigger in magnitude.

Would Iowa fall for the trap game, or take care of business at home?

The first few minutes couldn’t have started much worse for Iowa. The Hawks started 0/7 from the floor, turned the ball over four times, and found themselves in an 8-0 hole. Iowa finally hit a few threes to narrow the lead, but Nebraska kept getting good shots, and the Huskers lead hit double-digits at 21-11 with 1:20 to play. Iowa closed the quarter on a 4-0 run, but Nebraska still led 21-15 heading to the second.

In the early second quarter, Iowa finally woke up. The Hawkeye defense turned Nebraska over a few times, and that defense led to offense. A Caitlin Clark three tied the game at 23 with 7:56 to play in the quarter when Nebraska called timeout.

The timeout didn’t help. Iowa kept rolling offensively, and its defense clamped down. Over the next five minutes and change, Iowa continued its huge run and built the lead to 33-23. The teams went back and forth to end the quarter, but Clark found Monika Czinano for a late bucket, and Iowa led 41-30 at the half.

Iowa wasn’t very crisp in the third quarter. The Hawks took some ill-advised shots and allowed too much dribble penetration again. But they also controlled the quarter, too, leading by as many as 18 and taking a 67-50 lead to the fourth.

Nebraska started the fourth with a big run and narrowed the Iowa lead to just 67-62. Nebraska was getting too much dribble penetration and hitting every shot. Clark finally stopped the run with a huge three to push Iowa’s lead back to 70-62. The shot also seemed to calm Iowa down. The Hawkeyes got better looks offensively and finally started to get stops again. Iowa pushed the lead back to 12, and it looked like Iowa had the game in hand again.

But Nebraska went on another big run in the game’s final few minutes, and scored with 1:53 left to cut Iowa’s lead to 75-70. Iowa’s offense stayed cold in the next couple possessions, but was bailed out by the defense getting a few stops, including a huge Kate Martin steal. Clark hit two free throws with 37 seconds to play to give Iowa a 77-70 lead. Nebraska did hit another three with 18 seconds left to cut the lead to 4, but the Huskers couldn’t get any closer, and Iowa ultimately won 80-76.

Clark led Iowa with 33 points, 10 rebounds, and 9 assists. She only shot 9/26 from the floor, though, in part because she absorbed contact any time she tried to drive to the basket. It’s ridiculous that she can put up a stat line like this and you can’t still say she wasn’t close to her best.

Czinano had 17 points and 7 rebounds on 7/10 shooting. On the one hand she should get more shots. On the other, Nebraska did a great job of making entry passes to her very difficult. Hannah Stuelke was the final Hawkeye in double-figures with 12 points. She continues to be a big weapon off the bench for Iowa, and she looked much better at the line today. A box score for the game is here.

Iowa usually does a decent job of closing out victories, but this was a notable exception. The team didn’t look fully engaged on either end in the third quarter, and that nearly burned Iowa in the fourth when the Huskers caught fire and Iowa couldn’t buy a basket, going the final 5:38 of the game without making a field goal.

The Hawkeyes ultimately got the stops they needed late, but their offense became too dependent on long jumpers or trying to force balls into Czinano in the post.

Against Ohio State, Iowa’s switch to a triangle-and-two completely changed the complexion of the game. Today, it was Iowa’s 2-3 zone.

In the first quarter, Iowa played a lot of player-to-player defense and got beat off the dribble or on entry passes to the post. In the second quarter, Iowa was in the zone most of the quarter, and Nebraska couldn’t get the ball inside. The Huskers settled for threes that they shot extremely poorly (2/12 in the first half).

As a result, Iowa got stops and got to push in transition where its offense is best. Nebraska scored just 9 points in the second quarter, and seven of those were in the final 2:33 of the quarter.

In the second half, Iowa went away from the zone again, and Nebraska was able to get to the basket again and cut into Iowa’s lead.

Iowa returns to action on Thursday, February 2 at 7:30 PM CT at home against #10 Maryland. The Terps are 17-4 overall and 8-2 in the Big Ten. The game will be televised on ESPN.