WHO: #3 seed Maryland Terrapins (25-3, 16-3 Big Ten)
WHEN: Saturday, March 4 -- approx. 4 PM CT (25-30 minutes after end of Indiana-OSU)
WHERE: Target Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
TV: Big Ten Network
RADIO: Hawkeye Radio Network | Sirius/XM 109 or 196
MOBILE: www.foxsports.com/mobile
ONLINE: www.foxsports.com/live
FOLLOW: @IowaAwesome | @IowaWBB | @IowaonBTN

Maryland might be the hottest team in the country. On January 12th the Terps lost a close game at Indiana. Since then, Maryland is 12-1 with the only loss at Iowa on February 2. In the past month, the Terps have two wins over Ohio State, two wins over Illinois, and the blowout win over Iowa last week.

So how can the Hawkeyes beat one of the hottest teams in the country and a team that beat them 96-68 less than two weeks ago? Let’s dig in.

Frankly, a lot went right for Iowa in its 96-82 win over Maryland in early February. In that game Caitlin Clark, Monika Czinano, and Hannah Stuelke had some of the very best games of their respective careers.

Clark scored 42 points, dished 8 assists, and shot 13-19 from the floor. Czinano scored 28 points on 14-18 shooting. Stuelke was a perfect 5-5 from the floor and had 13 total points.

A large part of Iowa’s offensive success was scoring in transition. Particularly in the first half, Iowa was able to get stops, push the ball up the floor, and get easy buckets more often than not. The reason Iowa got so many stops was that Maryland shot terribly from three-point range in the game. The Terps were just 2-18 from three, including five separate players going 0-2.

Maryland also battled foul trouble throughout the game. Six different Terps ended the game with four fouls, and star Diamond Miller played 5-6 fewer minutes than she normally would have due to foul concerns.

Fouls are a big deal for Maryland and Miller in particular. Maryland has five losses this season. In four of those loses Miller had four fouls or more. In the fifth (an early season loss to #1 South Carolina) Miller was unavailable to play due to injury.

The second game at Maryland was like a polar opposite of the first game. The Terps had just 14 fouls as a team, and no player had more than three. Maryland was also on fire from distance, finishing 14-26 (53.8%) overall. In the decisive second quarter, when the Terps went from down one at the start of the quarter to up 18 at halftime, Maryland shot 7-11 from three, while Iowa shot a terrible 0-10.

But the most decisive difference was Maryland’s defense. The Terps spent most of the game in a box and one. Down low, the player closest to Czinano fronted her most of the game, while the help-side defender played behind Czinano for as long as possible. As a result, Czinano was sandwiched in double coverage for most of the game and there was no space to get her the ball. Czinano finished the game just 2-5 from the floor with only 4 total points.

Maryland used the one player-to-player defender to guard Caitlin Clark, which often meant that Clark too was being doubled by that player plus the closest zone defender. Like Czinano, Clark struggled, shooting just 5-13 from the floor and finishing with 18 points.

With so many defensive resources committed to Clark and Czinano, Iowa needed its role players to step up and carry a bigger offensive load. That largely didn’t happen. Gabbie Marshall and Sydney Affolter played well, but Iowa’s other role players combined to shoot 6-26.

In my preview of the second Maryland game I cautioned that a lot went right for Iowa in the first game that it shouldn’t expect to happen again.

The same thing is true for Maryland in this game. The Terps are a decent shooting team, but they aren’t likely to replicate that 14-26 shooting performance from three. Iowa role players like Stuelke, Kate Martin, McKenna Warnock, and Molly Davis probably aren’t going to combine to go 6-26 from the field either.

This game is also a blank slate. Iowa got shellshocked by that big second quarter and started to force things early in the third. When the Hawks weren't able to cut into Maryland’s lead they lost focus and the game snowballed from there, leading to the blowout loss. Had the Hawkeyes been able to maintain their focus, the score probably wouldn’t have gotten quite as out of hand even with Maryland’s hot shooting.

Solve Maryland’s box and one defense. The box and one is known as a “junk” defense for a reason. It can be very effective in short spurts, but has glaring weaknesses teams can exploit with good tactics and execution.

Martin, Marshall, and Warnock need to be ready to take and hit open threes in tomorrow’s game. If they can hit those shots—especially early in the game—Maryland will have to break out of the box and one and that will free up space for Clark and Czinano to shine again.

Late Friday night, Stanford was upset in the semifinal of the Pac 12 Tournament by UCLA. Stanford was projected as a 1 seed and #3 overall prior to the loss by ESPN. ESPN had Maryland as a 1 seed and #4 overall in the same projection.

According to Creme and ESPN, Maryland is now the #3 overall seed and Stanford is a vulnerable #4 overall seed. Utah is likely still 5th overall, but cannot improve its resume further.

All that is to say that Iowa has a huge opportunity in front. If the Hawkeyes can win the Big Ten Tournament, it seems very plausible that they could earn a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for just the third time in program history (after 1988 and 1992).

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