Hawkeyes Wait For NCAA Bid

Iowa women's basketball coach Lisa Bluder defended her team's resumé after Friday's 87-66 loss to Ohio State in a Big Ten tournament quarterfinal in Indianapolis.

The Hawkeyes (23-7) went into the tournament with an RPI of 12. The loss to the Buckeyes, who were 22nd in the RPI, gave Iowa a 6-2 record against teams in the top 25 in the RPI. Only Oregon, South Carolina, and Maryland had as many wins coming into the weekend.

Iowa was seeded 13th on the NCAA women's basketball tournament selection committee pre-seeding list released Monday night, which means the Hawkeyes would have been a 4 seed in a regional and a host for the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament.

How much the loss to the Buckeyes will hurt is something the Hawkeyes won't know until the release of the 64-team bracket on March 16.

"You know, I don't know," Bluder said. "I hope they look at the body of work because we have I think five top-25 RPI wins. It's one of the top in the country. No, we didn't play as well as we could tonight, as well as we should have tonight, but again, I hope we're not resting this on one game but instead on the 29 games that led up to this.

"Twenty-nine games leading up to this had us hosting. Is one game going to knock us out? I don't know, we'll have to wait and see. Now it definitely puts us on pins and needles, though, waiting, right?"

The Hawkeyes' strength of schedule ranked 22nd coming into the weekend. Their nonconference RPI ranked 17th.

Iowa is 8-4 against teams in the RPI top 50. The Hawkeyes had a 6-5 road record.

The committee also considers the record over the last 10 games. Iowa is 6-4, with three of their worst defeats of the season — Friday's game, along with a 93-59 loss at Maryland and a 78-63 loss at Michigan.

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