Iowa Advances By Topping Georgia

IOWA CITY, Iowa - McKenna Warnock admitted she had a few tears leaving the Carver-Hawkeye Arena court for the last time.

Warnock isn’t one to show her emotions, but she knew who to blame.

“Monika (Czinano) started crying first,” Warnock said, smiling.

Few tears, yeah. Some celebration, of course.

But a big party? No, not yet.

Iowa’s 74-66 win over Georgia in the second round of the NCAA women’s tournament on Sunday erased a ghost from last season and sent the Hawkeyes to the second weekend of the tournament for the ninth time in program history.

But the celebration, guard Caitlin Clark said, was muted, because just getting out of the first weekend should only be the beginning.

“Any time you are one of 16 teams that get to keep playing basketball, it's pretty special,” Clark said. “It wasn't a huge party or celebration in the locker room. This wasn't our goal. It's one of the steps to reaching our goal, but it's not the be-all, end-all to us.”

The Hawkeyes (28-6), the second seed in Seattle Regional 4, are off to the Sweet Sixteen after surviving against the 10th-seeded Lady Bulldogs (22-12), a pesky team that hung around to the end and got in a couple of pops before the buzzer sounded.

Georgia was within 68-66 with 2:17 to play, and didn’t score again. The Hawkeyes forced three turnovers and got six points from Clark in the final 43 seconds, the last four coming after the Bulldogs were whistled for two intentional fouls.

“We made a lot of runs,” said Georgia coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson. “I know everything is going to be about Iowa right now. But my team is really good. They are really good. We came in here, we fought like crazy, we were the underdogs, but there was no underdog here today.”

No, but there was an Iowa team that remembered how a 10 seed in Creighton came in here a year ago and shocked the Hawkeyes.

“It's not like we have to defend ourselves that we lost to Creighton last year,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “Creighton proved themselves they were a good team. They got to the Elite Eight. Sometimes it's about matchups. And that was a tough matchup for us. Today, this Georgia team was a tough matchup for us. And I thought we did a great job with that.”

And while this wasn’t their best effort — they had 17 turnovers — the Hawkeyes had a little more fight than the Lady Bulldogs, and in March, that counts for something.

“Yeah. I think it shows how tough we are,” said Clark, who had 22 points and 12 assists. “I think the mental toughness is going to carry us a long way. It wasn't always pretty — 17 turnovers isn't as (low) as we would like. We want to keep that number a bit lower.

“This is a tough game to win. You are in the round of 32. Georgia has absolutely nothing to lose. We were in front of a sold-out crowd. And I thought we came down and we were really tough at the end of the game.”

All of Iowa’s points came from its starters. Monika Czinano had 20 points. Gabbie Marshall had 15. McKenna Warnock had 14.

Iowa was without forward Hannah Stuelke, the Big Ten’s Sixth Player of the Year, who was out after tweaking her ankle in the closing minutes of Saturday’s practice. The three players the Hawkeyes did use off the bench — Sydney Affolter, Addison O’Grady, and Molly Davis — combined to play just 8 minutes, 54 seconds.

“Yeah. I'm proud of them for being able to execute like that,” Bluder said of her starters. “The nice thing is, there were a little bit longer timeouts, so that helped us a little bit. Honestly, our players never hung their head, they never got upset about any of that stuff. And again, I really credit their maturity.”

Sunday wasn’t going to be easy against a Georgia zone that cluttered everything the Hawkeyes wanted to do. They shot just 44.8 percent from the field, almost seven percent lower than their season average. Their 17 turnovers led to 21 points.

And they won.

Which is what March is all about.

“It's only to get harder and teams are going to get better from here,” Marshall said. “We know that. We're just going to have the same mentality and take it game by game. Day by day. And I think we're ready. We're excited. And obviously, it's really special that we get to go to the Sweet Sixteen.”

It’s only the next step, Clark said.

“This is the first weekend and it's done with,” Clark said. “And now we have the second weekend. And we hope there's a third weekend too.”