Playing at Northern Iowa is never easy. The Panthers routinely have a solid team, and most of their players know Iowa’s players well due to playing with or against each other in high school, AAU, or both.
Iowa’s last trip to Cedar Falls showed that well. The Hawks were thoroughly outclassed from start to finish in that game, and ended up losing 88-66. Lucky, this isn’t 2019.
Iowa jumped out to a 24-9 first quarter lead in today’s game thanks largely to… defense. Northern Iowa’s offense uses a ton of screening action, but Iowa’s defenders largely did well in the quarter to get around those and keep UNI out of the paint. Instead, the Panthers settled for three-pointers, but they only made 1/8 of those. Iowa’s guards also looked to jump passing lanes, and forced five first quarter turnovers, several of which led to easy baskets in transition.
Iowa’s offense was more of a mixed bag. Iowa did well at getting to the basket, either on a drive, or an entry pass to Monika Czinano or McKenna Warnock. But Iowa’s distance shooting was off, as the Hawks were also just 1/8 from three-point range.
Iowa kept their momentum in the early 2nd quarter, and extended their lead to 31-13 before a UNI timeout. Then Iowa’s offense got sloppy. The Hawks turned it over on a few possessions, and started settling for too many early threes that largely weren’t falling. Caitlin Clark especially was off from deep but kept forcing shots.
Despite the offensive lull, however, Iowa’s defense remained strong. Northern Iowa turned it over an additional seven times in the second quarter, and went just 1/6 from three-point range. Despite UNI playing a much more competitive second quarter, the score was still 41-24 Iowa at the half.
The third quarter started well for Iowa. Czinano was back in the game after foul trouble to end the 2nd quarter, and the Hawks found her early and often. Iowa briefly extended their lead to 21, and the game looked over.
But then Iowa took Czinano out for a break, and Iowa’s offense went cold. Northern Iowa, meanwhile, finally started to hit some of the threes they had missed all game. By quarter’s end, Iowa's lead had been cut to 57-44, though UNI missed a great chance to cut that to 10 or 11 on their last possession.
Iowa made three three-pointers and got a Czinano layup in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter to put thoughts of a UNI comeback to rest. From there, most of the rest of the quarter was a slopy mess that got physical on a number of possessions. But Iowa made a few late baskets and closed out an 82-61 victory in a game that felt closer than the score indicated.
Clark led Iowa with 25 points, 11 rebounds, and 7 assists. She shot just 9/22 in the game, though, including 4/13 from three. She was 2/10 from three before she made a few threes late in the game. She also got a technical foul late in the game, though Coach Bluder was unhappy with the officials after the call.
Warnock had her best game of the young season, scoring 15 points and grabbing six rebounds. Czinano was the last Hawkeye in double figures with 16 points and five rebounds. A box score for the game is here.
Defense
Last year, the fewest points Iowa gave up in a game was 62 to Rutgers in the Big Ten Tournament. Against Northern Iowa last year, Iowa surrendered 81 points in a relatively close win at home. This year through three games, Iowa has allowed 50, 54, and 61 points.
Today’s defensive effort from Iowa was largely good outside of a small stretch in the third quarter where Iowa went to a 2-3 zone and UNI made a couple threes in a row. The Hawks did well at limiting penetration, contesting shots around the basket, and forcing UNI into long three-pointers. They also forced 19 UNI turnovers, several of which led to easy offensive baskets.
During Iowa’s Elite 8 run in 2018-2019, the Hawkeyes were never a great defensive team. But they did do well at limiting shots around the basket and forcing opponents to take a bunch of long threes. Coach Bluder’s bet was that her opponents wouldn’t make enough of those long shots to outscore Iowa’s potent offense. More often than not, that turned out to be true. Thus far, it looks like Coach Bluder is trying to utilize the same defensive strategy this year to improve Iowa’s defense.
Three games certainly isn’t a large sample size, and Iowa’s competition hasn’t been great, but so far, Iowa’s defense has been noticeably better. We’ll see if the improvements are still there once Iowa faces Power 5 opposition.
Offense Without Czinano
Iowa’s offense today looked significantly worse when Monika Czinano was off the court. Part of that was losing Czinano’s scoring threat in the low post. Logan Cook isn’t much of an offensive threat in the post, and Addison O’Grady isn’t at this stage in her career, either.
But a bigger part of the problem was Iowa’s guards. Too often when Czinano was out they forced three-pointers early in the shot clock that they just didn’t need to take. Iowa is a good shooting team, but today there were large stretches of the game where no one was shooting well. But Iowa’s offense did do well throughout the game at driving to the basket and scoring or drawing fouls. In future games, I’d like to see Iowa continue attacking the basket even when Czinano isn’t on the court.
Rotation
In Iowa’s first two games, Coach Bluder regularly played 10 of Iowa’s 11 healthy players. In today’s game, however, freshmen Addison O’Grady and Sydney Affolter played just four and three minutes respectively. Coach Bluder preferred to limit her rotation to players who have experience in big road games.
Hopefully throughout the rest of the non-conference schedule Iowa can get O’Grady and Affolter more involved to the point where she trusts them in the bigger games. Iowa could be at a disadvantage if their rotation is only eight deep, especially if injuries strike again.
Next Up
Iowa returns to action on Wednesday, November 17th at 6:30 PM against Southern University. The Jaguars are 0-1 with a 92-32 loss to #23 Texas A&M so far this season, and play at Marquette on Monday. The game will be streamed on Big Ten Plus.
