March Madness: Even without a Caitlin Clark career day, Iowa's defense could portend title run

Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder didn’t spend the week leading into the NCAA tournament talking with her team about what happened this time last year. That heartbreak was motivation for the summer, not heading into the 40 minutes that would avenge it and move the Hawkeyes one step closer to their first Final Four since 1993.

For those watching on ABC on Sunday afternoon, every camera shot of Caitlin Clark’s parents, stressed and wringing their hands amid another sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena crowd, was its own reminder. Every time Georgia came back within a few possessions late, the furrowed brows inside and outside the arena told all: Was it about to happen again? Was No. 2-seeded Iowa, one of the nation’s best offenses led by the highlight-friendly deep-threat point guard, about to be upset by a No. 10 seed for a second consecutive year?

It sure looked like it when the Lady Bulldogs led late in the third, when they cut it back to a possession midway through the fourth and definitely when they cut it to a bucket with 2:19 left. The longer Iowa let them stay in it, the more confident Diamond Battles and the overlooked SEC squad became. Eyes widened. Brows furrowed further.

It wasn’t Iowa’s offense that brought relief to another tough second-round tournament draw. It was an unexpected defensive stand that sent the Hawkeyes into the Sweet 16 with a hard-fought 74-66 win. The way they did it against a top defense, without a career day from Clark and sans help off the bench, portends a possible title run in the making.

“Georgia is an excellent basketball team,” Bluder said. “And obviously, we had to play very, very well in order to get this victory today.”

Clark intercepted a turnover and hit a jumper to bump the lead to 4 at the 47-second mark after four consecutive missed shots by the team. Kate Martin tipped the pass at the top of the arc for it to land safely in the hands of Monika Czinano on the next possession, enough to advance with free throws added down the stretch.

Clark, the National Player of the Year contender, had 18 points before those four free throws at the end, a stat that would have marked her second-fewest points total of the season. She scored 15 in 20 minutes of a 111-57 blowout against Rutgers last month. Her 22 final points are still nearly 5 below her average and her three rebounds were the lowest of her season.

What she didn’t have in the first two categories she made up for in the second. Her 12 assists trail totals from four other games and she scored or assisted on 33 of the team’s final 35 points in a game that featured nine lead changes, four ties and never went over 10 points either way.

“I really did not want to let this team lose again in this round,” Clark said. “I knew I needed to step up and make plays for this team. I thought I was able to pick apart their zone with my eyes and get the ball inside.”

The second-round loss to Creighton last season weighed heavily on players then, and stayed in the back of people’s minds now. It was a bad matchup for Iowa to go up against the 3-point happy squad, just as this was a bad matchup to overcome the 13th-best defense in the nation. It could be similarly as tough going forward with Duke (third in defensive rating) a potential foe in the Sweet 16 in Seattle next weekend.

“We played great defense, played suffocating defense,” Georgia head coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson said. “And down the stretch down is not anything indicative of the game.”

Georgia turned the ball over three times in the final minutes, the first two its own mistakes. The pass to Clark turned into Iowa’s cushion. That determined the end of the game, but it wasn’t why Iowa won and it’s not why it looks good going forward.

The difference between Iowa’s 2022 second-round loss and this win is stark. Clark had 15 points, 8 rebounds and 11 assists last year and Czinano controlled the paint to score 27 in a 2-point loss. No other starter had more than 6 as they had relied on the “law firm” all season.

A year later, that firm has expanded its partners and found ways to win even during one of their lowest-scoring games of the year.

Abrahamson-Henderson gave an entertaining scouting report Saturday and knew Gabbie Marshall — “the cute little one with the [pretty] eyes” — could be a sniper. The Georgia defense still couldn’t stop her and Marshall went 5-of-8 from 3-point range for 15 points with 2 steals.

It’s been a hot month for the 5-foot-9 senior guard. She’s 19-of-33 in March compared to 32% (32-of-103 heading into the postseason). That’s huge for the Hawkeyes to have another threat that stretches out defenses. McKenna Warnock scored 14 points, her first double-digit game since the 21-point performance against Maryland on March 4, with 8 rebounds and 2 assists.

The starters were in nearly the full game, led by Clark playing all 40 minutes despite early foul trouble, and it was far from an ideal situation for a team that had developed more necessary depth than it had last year.

Iowa usually turns to freshman forward Hannah Stuelke, the Big Ten Sixth Player of the Year who has been its X factor. She did not play after turning her ankle in the last three minutes of Saturday’s practice, Bluder said. The coach said she thinks Stuelke will be back for the Sweet 16.

It added Molly Davis, a transfer from Central Michigan, in the portal last year and she averages 18 minutes a game. But early in the contest, her leg twisted under a defender in a pile and she did not return to the game. Davis was seen on the bench without ice or any wraps on it, and Bluder said after the win she hasn’t heard anything yet.

Bluder said the longer commercial breaks helped with having to play her starters so long. They had more to give defensively to try and limit Battles, who scored a team-best 21 points with 6 rebounds and 3 steals. Abrahamson-Henderson called her the “best player on the floor tonight” and a big reason they stayed in it, as well as their Lady Bulldogs zone.

Clark had said heading into the contest there was little her team hadn’t seen defensively at this point and they were ready for it all. At least on Sunday, she proved that right. With the crushing defeat of last season now truly an old note in its story, well-balanced Iowa can keep pushing forward to see one in Dallas.