MINNEAPOLIS -- Role players shoot better at home, the old saying goes. For third-ranked Iowa (27-4), a home away from home worked just fine Friday.
Almost 20,000 Hawkeye fans swarmed into Minneapolis on Friday night and turned the Target Center, regular home of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx, into Carver North.
READ MORE: No. 3 Iowa 95, Penn State 62: Welcome to Carver North
Iowa's role players have enjoyed many strong shooting nights in the friendly confines of Carver-Hawkeye Arena this season and they took to this northern outpost taken over by Iowa fans like loons to water, to use waterfowl native to the region.
Caitlin Clark, the reigning three-time Big Ten Player of the Year, led Iowa with 24 points, which was no surprise. Clark has led Iowa in 30 of Iowa's 31 games this season, only Hannah Stuelke's 47-point eruption against Penn State in the first Iowa-Penn State game this season, prevented Clark from a clean sweep in in that category this season.
While Clark led Iowa in scoring, she certainly did not have a good night shooting the ball -- she shot just 5-of-19 from the floor and went 2-of-14 from 3-point range, missing her first 11 three-pointers of the game. (She was a much cleaner 12-of-13 at the free throw line, at least). Despite Clark's woeful night shooting the ball, though, Iowa was never particularly tested by the Nittany Lions and won by 33, 95-62.
The Hawkeyes rolled in such lopsided fashion because Clark's teammates stepped up across the board. Clark has carried Iowa to countless victories on her sturdy shoulders this season; on Friday, her teammates took their turn carrying the scoring load and did so in impressive fashion. Four other Hawkeyes scored in double figures in the game and five non-Clark Hawkeyes combined to make 13 three-pointers in the game. In fact, non-Clark Hawkeyes shot 13-of-30 (43%) from distance to set Penn State ablaze.
"There [was] so much good play out there tonight," said Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder. "Kate [Martin]'s energy was great. I thought Gabbie [Marshall] defensively was amazing for us again. I thought Syd [Affolter] was incredible. We have five people in double figures, 21 assists on 12 turnovers, out-rebound them by 12."
Sydney Affolter, starting in place of the injured Molly Davis, scored a career-high 18 points, second-most on the squad. She went 5-of-9 from the floor, including making 75% (3-of-4) of her three-point attempts, and also went a perfect 5-for-5 at the free throw line. Affolter's prowess attacking the rim and sniping from the perimeter was a promising development for Iowa's postseason hopes.
The month of March continues to be good for what ailed Gabbie Marshall, as she finished with 15 points on 5-of-8 shooting, including a team-high four three-pointers. Friday's effort made three straight games in which Marshall has made four triples.
"Confidence," said Marshall when asked about the source of her recent hot shooting. "That's the biggest thing, being confident in myself and just playing free out there."
Marshall's hot shooting helped carry Iowa to a Big Ten Tournament championship and NCAA Tournament championship game appearance a year ago; she's off to a good start in her efforts to repeat that performance this year.
"She's always valuable to us, but when she can hit those threes, I know she's having fun, and that makes it more fun for everybody," noted Bluder. "She's always going to work her tail off on the defensive end, but when you make baskets, it's a whole different game. It's just so much more fun for you.I'm glad she's getting rewarded for that. We need her moving forward, just like we did last year."
Taylor McCabe played her second-most minutes of the season (behind only a 16-minute day in Iowa's season-opening breeze over Fairleigh Dickinson) and rewarded Bluder's decision to play her with her second 15-point outing in her last three games.
"I thought Taylor went in and played extremely well, whether she's playing point guard, off guard, small forward," said Bluder. "She was doing anything for us."
McCabe tied Marshall with a team-high four three-pointers in the game (on 4-of-8 shooting) and provided yet another deep scoring threat for Iowa's very potent offense.
"Taylor is so important for us," said Bluder. "First of all, she can shoot the ball like crazy, which is great. She has just worked so hard this year, kept her head up, even when she wasn't getting meaningful minutes. Then here it is, the most important time of the year, and we need her, and she's showing up big."
The final Iowa player to score in double figures in the game was Kate Martin, who finished with 11 points on 5-of-9 shooting. Martin also had nine rebounds (tied with Affolter for second-most on the team, behind Clark's 10) and found ways to impact the game beyond her scoring as well.
It certainly feels notable that Iowa rolled by 33 in a game where Iowa was led by its role players -- and the best of those role players wasn't Iowa's second-leading scorer (Hannah Stuelke, 14.4 ppg) or Iowa's third-leading scorer (Kate Martin, 13.0 ppg). Martin made Iowa's first basket of the game (a three-pointer, naturally), but couldn't find a rhythm offensively; her 11 points came on 5-of-11 shooting overall.
Stuelke crushed Penn State in transition and in the low post in the first game between the teams earlier this season, scoring a career-high 47 points of 17-of-20 shooting from the field. Penn State seemed determined to prevent Stuelke from doing the same in this game, frequently rotating a help defender over to double-team Stuelke and deny her the ball or a clean look at the basket.
To Penn State's credit, their plan worked -- Stuelke didn't hurt them in this game, finishing with just 8 points on 1-of-5 shooting. It also didn't matter that Penn State's plan worked -- the Nittany Lions still lost by 33, because Iowa has a deep roster of offensive threats, which they showcased on Friday night.
"It just gives us so much more confidence moving forward," said Bluder. "It makes us so much harder to guard when we play like we did tonight."
Clark is not only the star of this team, she's the celestial body around which it rotates. Iowa likely won't win another Big Ten Tournament title -- or make another deep run in the NCAA Tournament -- if she has another night shooting the ball as poorly as she did on Friday. Given Clark's history, though, the odds of a repeat clunker aren't exactly high — though she's not going to let it stop her from trying to shoot herself out of it.
"Sometimes it's hard to get up there and shoot the next one, but honestly maybe that's my poison sometimes," Clark said. "I'm just going to launch it. That's just how it's going to be. I was going to make one before the buzzer hit zero, even if it took 20 of them."
Efforts like this by Iowa's supporting cast can change the calculus for this Iowa team, though. Players like Affolter and McCabe won't always be as lethal from long range as they were tonight -- but if they can produce a few more nights like this over the next month, Iowa's ability to duplicate last year's run through March could become a reality.
