Caitlin Clark and Lisa Bluder assess Iowa women’s basketball’s tough loss to Kansas State
Hear from Caitlin Clark, Lisa Bluder and Molly Davis after the Hawkeyes’ loss to Kansas State.
IOWA CITY — Iowa tugged and tugged, trying to drag itself through the mud as Carver-Hawkeye Arena pumped alongside with hard-fought noise. It wasn’t a basketball masterpiece. They don’t all have to be in one long season.
An unsteady flow and little offensive rhythm dominated Thursday’s big showdown against Kansas State, testing No. 2 Iowa from start to finish in a way never seen before this year. The stabilization boost Iowa needed never came.
For the second straight year, Kansas State handed the Hawkeyes a troubling loss early in the non-conference schedule. In Thursday’s 65-58 loss, Iowa (3-1) and Caitlin Clark played awkwardly for 40 minutes, unable to find the key ingredients like she had so many times before.
“It just wasn’t Iowa basketball,” said Clark, who scored a game-high 24 points but shot just 9-for-32 and 2-for-16 from distance. “As a point guard, I have to take responsibility for that. I need to get our offense a little better. I need to have a little better shot selection.”
Although Iowa was hard-fought, Kansas State (3-0) didn’t take the lead for the first time in the fourth quarter until two free throws from Ayoka Lee with 1:12 left to give the Wildcats a 59-58 lead. From there, Clark missed four shots on Iowa’s final three possessions while Kansas State came within inches of it. Two free throws from the Wildcats with 9.3 seconds left cemented this stunning upset.
Clark finished 1-for-10 in the fourth quarter en route to her first collegiate game with more than 20 missed shots, the main reason Iowa failed to reach 60 points for the first time since Feb. 13, 2020 at Maryland. Overall, the Hawkeyes only had two fastbreak points on a night where no one other than Clark scored in double figures.
After a shaky affair that ended in a grueling one-point loss in Manhattan, Kansas, last year, the Hawkeyes knew Kansas State would show up again on the return trip to Iowa City. Iowa needed more than their superstar to survive this game.
“We just have to give other guys more opportunities to shoot threes and create opportunities for them to shine,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “We really don’t give people the opportunity to shine as much as they could.”
Things seemed to be stabilizing as the crisis approached. After a methodical 13-0 run that began late in the third quarter and extended into the fourth quarter, which lasted more than seven minutes, Iowa erased a seven-point deficit and turned it into a 48-42 with 9:04 left -Transform lead. But that did little to comfort the noisy building in the end.
The Hawkeyes’ lead never exceeded five points in the final five minutes, forcing Iowa to repeatedly respond to Kansas State with increasing tension. When the Wildcats finally broke through, the various problems of the night became clear.
Clark provided the perfect snapshot of Iowa’s opening stutter late in the second quarter, letting out an emphatic scream shrouded in frustration after Iowa’s first three-pointer of the night finally fell. The Hawkeyes opened 0-for-8 from deep — while Clark missed 10 of her first 14 shots — setting an ominous tone for the game to come.
Still, Iowa has earned the benefit of the doubt, especially at home, when it comes to emerging victorious from a grueling battle. With a solid test on Sunday against Drake (3-0), the Hawkeyes can’t wait to turn this loss from a disappointment into a blessing.
“There will be nights where I don’t shoot the ball really well, and I don’t think I really helped myself get to the basket and take advantage of fouls when I needed to,” Clark said. “But we can still win games if we don’t shoot the ball well. So there were a lot of other areas where we could improve.”
Dargan Southard is a sports trends reporter who covers Iowa athletics for the Des Moines Register and HawkCentral.com. Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter at @Dargan_Southard.