Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder looks up at the score board during NCAA women's basketball game against Kansas State, Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023, at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa. (Joseph Cress/For the Register / USA TODAY NETWORK)
Kansas St. Takes Down No. 2 Hawkeyes
Caitlin Clark fidgeted with frustration as she sat at the table during the post-game press conference.
No. 2 Iowa had suffered its first loss of the season, a 65-58 defeat to Kansas State at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Thursday night, and Clark knew the Hawkeyes had left something behind.
The Hawkeyes (3-1) led 58-53 with 2:42 to play, and didn’t score again, the unheeded exhortations by coach Lisa Bluder to finish off the Wildcats (3-0) still hanging over the team after the game.
Clark, the reigning national player of the year, went 1-of-10 from the field in the fourth quarter, including 0-of-7 in 3-pointers, and took a lot of the blame on her shoulders.
“There are going to be nights I don't shoot the ball very well,” said Clark, who was 9-of-32 overall, 2-of-16 in 3-pointers, on the way to a 24-point night. “I don't think I helped myself, not getting to the basket and taking advantage of fouls when I needed to.”
Bluder felt the same way as Clark — there was more the Hawkeyes could have done on a night when they made just 36.1 percent of their shots, when they had just two fast-break points, when they had nine assists against 16 turnovers.
“That’s really not us,” Bluder said, and she was right.
Kansas State put the first dent in the Hawkeyes’ season last year, and the Wildcats did the same in this one. Neither team was sharp — the Wildcats shot just 39.4 percent and went almost eight minutes in the second half without a point — but Kansas State made enough plays in the closing minutes.
“It really came down to the fourth quarter,” Bluder said. “They beat us in the fourth quarter. They beat us in crunch time.”
There have been high expectations on the Hawkeyes since the beginning of the season coming off last spring’s run to the NCAA championship game. They had roared through the opening week — the opening-game rout of Fairleigh Dickinson, the gut-it-out win over No. 8 and fellow Final Four team Virginia Tech, and then Sunday’s clouting of Northern Iowa on the road — but yet this was still a team that had questions to answer.
Bluder has used three different starting lineups in the first four games — Sydney Affolter got the first start of her career in this game — and it’s still a matter of finding consistency in the post.
Still, Bluder said, “We felt good,” coming into the game, before adding, “Maybe too good.”
Kansas State had seen how the Hawkeyes had been their best in transition in the opening week, so the goal was to slow them down. It started by sending waves of players at Clark, to keep her from weaving through the defense to find open players. It also meant slowing anyone else trying to get to the basket.
“We were able to keep them from getting the easy runouts,” Kansas State coach Jeff Mittie said. “We wanted to make that as hard as we could on them, and it was easier said than done.”
“We knew that this one would be won in transition,” said Wildcats center Ayoka Lee, who had 22 points, including 10 in the fourth quarter. “We had to have transition (defense). It fell apart sometimes, but we did a good job of picking it back up when it fell apart.”
“Our transition, as a whole, wasn’t very good,” Clark said.
Clark didn’t have much help offensively. Molly Davis had 10 points, but all of those came in the second half. No one else scored in double figures, and the two most experienced players in Iowa’s lineup besides Clark — Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall — combined for just two points.
The best shooting, Bluder pointed out, came from post players Hannah Stuelke, Sharon Goodman and Addison O’Grady, who combined to go 7-of-12 from the field.
“They need to have more looks,” Bluder said. “We need to have faith in them.”
Iowa scored 13 consecutive points during Kansas State’s scoreless stretch, but couldn’t complete the win.
Clark’s mind ventured back to last season, when the Hawkeyes lost to Kansas State. It was the beginning of an early stretch of struggles that actually became an education for what would come in March and early April.
“This loss,” Clark said, “isn’t going to break our season.
