Iowa guard Caitlin Clark (22) goes up against Southeastern Louisiana guards Cierria Cunningham (2) and Taylor Bell (5) during the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Friday, March 17, 2023. (Margaret Kispert/The Register/USA TODAY NETWORK)
Hawkeye Women Roll in NCAA Opener
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Southeastern Louisiana boasted about its defense, which had held opponents to an average of 54.5 points, heading into Friday’s NCAA women’s tournament game against Iowa.
The Hawkeyes blew past that number in the third quarter.
Iowa wasn’t challenged in the 95-43 rout of the Lady Lions in the first round of Seattle Regional 4. Not that it was expected to be close — the Hawkeyes were 30-point favorites — but it’s a sign that this postseason will be about Iowa being ready to face any challenge, even modest ones.
“I think that we've seen just about anything you can do in the game of basketball at this point,” said All-American guard Caitlin Clark, who had 26 points and 12 assists. “We've seen box-and-one, triangle-in-two, we've seen zone, we've seen everything. They were physical, they were.
“They were a scrappy team, picking up full-court man-to-man, but I really don't know what there is out there that you can do to us that we really haven't seen.”
The Hawkeyes (27-6) are on a mission to conquer the ghost of last season, when they were eliminated in the second round by 10th seed Creighton, and the last thing they wanted in front of a home crowd of 14,382 was to be challenged by a pesky newcomer to the NCAA tournament.
They weren’t.
The Hawkeyes led 28-17 in the first quarter, 54-32 at halftime, and just to finish it off with a flourish held Southeastern Louisiana to just 11 second-half points.
Iowa hadn’t played since winning the Big Ten Tournament on March 5, and if there was any rust, it didn’t show.
“If anything,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said, “we got a little sharper.”
“I thought it felt really good, to come out and start like that, it's huge, especially when you have had time off not playing games,” Clark said. “It's different. We come to practice every day and scrimmage but it doesn't quite give you that real game simulation. I thought it was really good. I thought it was good to see.”
Southeastern Louisiana, a 15 seed, vowed not to be daunted by the atmosphere of a passionate sellout crowd and, for the most part, the Lady Lions weren’t. Their second-half wilt wasn’t because of the noise, it was because of Iowa’s defense.
The Hawkeyes aren’t known for being silencers, but with their offense, even a decent defense makes them quite effective.
A switch to a zone in the second quarter stymied Southeastern Louisiana, and Bluder stuck with it the rest of the game.
“I anticipated it,” Southeastern Louisiana coach Ayla Guzzardo said. “When you look at a Big Ten team you think they can guard a little Southland school. I'll be honest with you, you would think they could guard us man-to-man. But they went zone. Great game plan because we don't shoot the three-ball well.”
Bluder had a couple of motives for sticking with it.
“It was kind of to preserve our legs a little bit,” Bluder said. “First of all, it was working and second of all, why run around and chase screens if you don't have to. You know, when you're going to play again on Sunday, it's kind of nice to be able to sit in a zone and maybe not have to play all those screens.”
Southeastern Louisiana made just 3-of-22 shots in the second half.
“Maybe our offense is better than our defense, but we still think we are a good defensive team,” Clark said. “We know our starting group has been together for, what, three years now. And maybe our first year we were not a great defensive team, but we knew if we want to reach the Final Four this year we have to get better at defense
“We've spent a lot of time on it. We've really bought into getting better. We know that your defense can always be there. Maybe the offense won't always be there but that is always something that you can fall back on, and we will need to fall back on it.”
Monika Czinano had 22 points and Hannah Stuelke added 13 for the Hawkeyes, who carried the end-of-season momentum in the postseason and want to keep building on that.
“I think we really needed the time off, because it's just when you win the (Big Ten) tournament, you're on such a high and it takes awhile to come down from that,” Bluder said. “So we really needed the break in order to get our feet on the ground and focus on the next step ahead.”
