The No. 10 Iowa Hawkeyes went into the second quarter trailing unranked Nebraska 21-15. With under nine minutes to go in the frame, Cornhuskers center Alexis Markowski scored on a layup to keep Nebraska out in front 23-18.
Over six scoreless minutes later Nebraska finally found the bottom of the net. This time, they were trailing by eight. Eight straight misses, and the Hawkeyes went on a 15-0 scoring run. Lisa Bluder said the team switched from man to zone, and it paid dividends.
“Second quarter was great,” Bluder proclaimed. “We did a great job on the boards the whole first half. We got good shots in the second quarter.”
A little Caitlin Clark never hurts things either. She hit a pair of threes to spur the Hawkeyes offense that shot 9-14 in the quarter. And on the defensive end, she contributed three steals along and secured eleven boards.
“I felt like we got a lot of tips and deflections in our zone,” said Clark, whose Hawkeyes forced twelve turnovers. “We were pretty spaced out to the shooters. We’re defending the three point line really well. I thought Monica really rebounded the ball well in the second quarter. Gabby did too. I know she had quite a few big boards but I thought our zone defense was really good. When you get stops, that’s what leads to our transition. I think the biggest thing was it just started on defense. We got stops in our zone.”
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