All victories are count as +1 in the win column. But this Hawkeyes triumph is not as satisfying as head coach Lisa Bluder would’ve liked. Iowa beat an unranked Nebraska team by just four points at home. She said she had a goal, and it wasn’t reached in her eyes.
“We didn’t put the fear into them that I wanted to put into them,” Bluder said. “We didn’t shoot as well from two as we usually do. We did a great job from three and outrebounding them by 11, we just took a lot harder twos that weren’t falling for us.”
Personally, I don’t know how anybody isn’t mortally terrified of Caitlin Clark on a basketball court. The NPOY frontrunner scored a casual 33 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and came one assist shy of yet another triple double. She said the team was calm from start to finish.
“I didn’t think we were ever going to lose the lead,” Clark said postgame. “I don’t think anyone panicked at the beginning when we were down. We have the offensive firepower to come back, it’s just not a situation we want to be in.”
Here’s the good news for the Hawkeyes. A win-is-a-win-is-a-win. They’re 9-1 in conference and have rattled off six in a row – and have won consecutive games without 3rd leading scorer McKenna Warnock. However, the team’s uninspiring performance likely won’t cut it next outing, when the 10th ranked Maryland Terrapins come to Iowa City on Thursday.
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