ALBANY, N.Y. − The boxed locker-room lunch for Iowa girls’s basketball gamers on Friday was from Chick-fil-A, which doesn’t on the floor appear related to the Hawkeyes’ NCAA Event Candy 16 matchup with Colorado.
However maintain studying and also you’ll see how a rooster sandwich ties into the important thing for top-seeded Iowa to win Saturday (2:30 p.m. CT, ABC) and advance to Monday’s Albany 2 regional last at MVP Area.
One of many essential elements in Iowa’s success all season has been the 3-point shot. The Hawkeyes (31-4) rank ninth out of 349 Division I groups in 3-point share for the season, at 37.6%. And, in some probably encouraging information, Colorado (24-9) ranks 312th in D-I in 3-point protection, permitting 33.9% success from lengthy vary.
However Iowa is coming off a dreadful taking pictures efficiency in a 64-54, survival-mode win towards West Virginia on Monday. Caitlin Clark was the one Hawkeye to make a 3-pointer. She went 5-for-14 from deep. The remainder of the workforce went 0-for-8. That equated to a 22.7% night time from 3.
How do they get it going once more?
“That is going to sound so simplistic, nevertheless it’s … simply confidence,” Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder mentioned. “It is simply getting within the health club and seeing that ball splash by way of the online and feeling good about it and envisioning your self being profitable.”
That reply brings up an excellent level. The Hawkeyes’ teaching employees spends a number of time on the psychological facet of basketball. That features Jan Jensen, the affiliate head coach, who additionally needed to verify to provide credit score to West Virginia’s stress protection. When it takes a lot power simply to get open, typically when that 3-point look lastly comes, the legs aren’t there. That’s what she noticed, anyway, on Monday night time when Gabbie Marshall went 0-for-3 and Kate Martin went 0-for-2, Sydney Affolter 0-for-2 and Kylie Feuerbach 0-for-1. Even Clark was solely 2-for-6 after halftime.
“We didn’t get right here as a result of we’re unhealthy shooters,” Jensen mentioned. “If we make that be a hurdle, then it’ll be robust sledding.
“I feel it will get to be so psychological. Whoever handles no matter you’re apprehensive about the very best, that’s what it comes right down to. I don’t care if it’s seeding, I don’t care if it’s location, I don’t care if it’s time of the sport. I don’t care if it’s your pregame meal. You don’t like your rooster? It’s whoever handles it the very best, wins.”
Don’t fear concerning the rooster sandwich. Simply belief your shot, what obtained you right here.
The one different time this season that Clark’s supporting forged didn’t make a 3-pointer was a 65-58 dwelling loss to Kansas State on Nov. 16.
Iowa adopted that by routing Drake, an NCAA Event workforce, behind 13-for-24 taking pictures from 3, together with 8-for-13 by these not named Caitlin Clark.
“As soon as we get one down, I really feel like all people will get fairly assured,” Feuerbach mentioned. “We simply begin knocking them down.”
Saturday, it’d simply take one. And often, if Marshall bangs one in early, that’s the very best signal Iowa can get. Marshall has the power to hit three or 4 from deep and push Iowa into the 90s
“Particularly at the start of the sport when she knocks one down, it will get all people rolling,” Feuerbach mentioned. “It’s actually enjoyable.”
In fact, Clark is a giant a part of Iowa’s 3-point success. The nation’s main scorer at 31.8 factors per sport has an NCAA-record 181 3-pointers this season and desires 10 extra to interrupt the NCAA profession report of 537.
“They’re an excellent taking pictures workforce,” Colorado level guard Jaylyn Sherrod mentioned. “You give them wide-open 3s, it’s going to be an extended night time.”
Colorado scouting report: It is a harmful workforce
A circuit by way of the Colorado locker room revealed a workforce that’s veteran and feels under-seeded at No. 5 within the Albany 2 Area. The Buffaloes defeated LSU, the third seed on this area and defending nationwide champ, by 14 to open the season. They have been 16-1 at one level and went by way of a gentle midseason lull. However seven of their 9 losses have been to groups seeded third, second or first within the NCAA Event.
“We’ve got unbelievable depth. We’re tremendous linked,” veteran guard Frida Formann mentioned. “I feel we now have a lot expertise in several positions. We play nice protection. We’ve got some super-quick aggressive guards and shooters. We’ve got just a little little bit of the whole lot and after we actually click on, I feel we’re actually laborious to face.”
Iowa beat Colorado, 87-77, in final yr’s Candy 16 sport in Seattle. Sherrod was in foul hassle within the first half; Formann within the second after scoring 19 first-half factors. Regardless of being seven-point underdogs, the Buffaloes are optimistic they will return the favor this time round by focusing extra on themselves than the star energy Iowa has in Clark.
“I would not actually say that we see this sport as revenge,” Formann mentioned. “I feel it is extra only a redemption for ourselves. We actually needed to go additional final yr, and Iowa was in our approach. And now they’re in our approach once more. However that doesn’t imply it’s something private towards them. We simply actually wish to have success.”
The Buffaloes registered 21 offensive boards a yr in the past to maintain that sport shut into the ultimate minutes. They solely misplaced one starter however added Michigan switch Maddie Nolan by way of the switch portal. Nolan shoots 43.5% from 3-point vary; Formann connects on 42.2%. Their dimension (each 5-foot-11) mixed with twin posts Aaronette Vonleh (6-3) and Quay Miller (6-3) can be a problem.
Scoring is a balanced effort, with Vonleh main the best way at 14.0 factors per sport. Colorado has 100 extra offensive rebounds than its opponents do.
“Final yr they obtained too many offensive rebounds,” Iowa’s Marshall mentioned. “That’s undoubtedly a key this yr towards them.
“Any workforce that performs us, particularly beating them final yr, they’re going to wish to kill us. They’re going to provide us their greatest shot. We’re ready for that from the West Virginia sport. It’s going to be a bodily sport.”
A double normal for conduct?
One of many hottest and likewise most amusing subjects Friday at MVP Area was Caitlin Clark’s on-court demeanor. Amusing, as a result of Bluder admitted she has needed to name technical fouls on Clark in observe – when the employed officers for scrimmages are afraid to.
Sure, Clark is as intense in observe as she is throughout video games. We knew that, however that gave the impression to be a revelation to the nationwide media in attendance right here.
Requested about it throughout a information convention, Clark let loose amusing as Martin signaled “T” and pointed at her good buddy and teammate.
“That hasn’t occurred shortly,” Clark joked.
Martin interjected, “I can perceive her frustration as a result of our managers are NOT good refs in any respect.”
In actuality, it’s change into a well-liked factor to bash Clark for her on-court antics, and a giant subject Friday was whether or not girls are held to a special normal than males. Secure to say, the ladies right here assume there completely is a double normal. They usually additionally agree that the recognition of the sport is rising partly as a consequence of followers realizing how aggressive (and good) these gamers actually are.
“Should you watch anybody in girls’s school basketball, most children play with a number of emotion. She simply has much more cameras on her,” Colorado’s Nolan mentioned of Clark. “That’s one thing a number of us do. If everybody performed emotion-less, that’d be fairly boring to look at.”
On the double normal? Simply the opposite night time within the NBA, we noticed Golden State’s Steph Curry kick down a chair in frustration. No person mentioned something about him being a poor position mannequin.
“Oh, undoubtedly,” Nolan added. “We see it on a regular basis in a males’s sport. They get away with it rather a lot. If a girl cusses … we’re painted in a detrimental gentle. However I feel that narrative is altering.”
Clark has by no means apologized for the hearth she performs with, nor ought to she. She does want to regulate that to a degree, as Bluder mentioned, as a result of Iowa can’t afford its greatest participant to get a technical foul in a sport. However her interior fireplace brings out an elite competitor on the ground.
Don’t count on Clark to vary in her last days as a university participant, simply because some Twitter consumer thinks she swears an excessive amount of.
“I nonetheless assume there’s room for that space to develop,” Clark mentioned concerning the double normal. “However I additionally assume that’s helped our sport develop a lot − girls being passionate, girls caring about our sport, being aggressive.”
When video games are on the (free throw) line for Iowa
One of many causes that Iowa has been capable of flip shut video games into comfortable-looking margins is superb free-throw taking pictures. A living proof was turning a tie rating within the last 2:03 towards West Virginia into 10-point win. Iowa knocked in eight free throws and not using a miss within the last 45 seconds.
For the season, the Hawkeyes rank 14th nationally in free throws with a 78.1% clip. What makes that fee extra spectacular is that 62% shooter Hannah Stuelke has the second-most makes an attempt on the workforce. Take that away, and the remainder of the Hawkeyes are 81.7% from the road this season. And, naturally, they get the ball to their greatest foul shooters when the sport is tight.
Clark’s 86.2% free-throw fee leads the workforce, and he or she has the third-most free-throw makes an attempt within the nation at 246 (behind USC’s JuJu Watkins and LSU’s Angel Reese). Martin knocks in 85.7%. Affolter is as much as 84.6% and is 18-for-18 since being inserted into the beginning lineup. Molly Davis, who’s injured and uncertain to play Saturday, is at 85.7% for the season.
“I’m within the health club on a regular basis, not simply taking game-like photographs however taking tons and tons of free throws,” Affolter mentioned. “Free throws are so essential. Technically, they’re like free factors. You get to the road, you’ve obtained to knock them down.”
So, the important thing with the form of free-throw benefit that Iowa has is to take a lead into the ultimate minute. Or, in a detailed sport, drive to the bucket and attempt to get fouled for an nearly computerized two factors. That helps a ton in these kind of pressure-packed NCAA Event settings. Clark went 4-for-4 within the last 13 seconds, every time in a two-point sport, final yr to place away No. 1 South Carolina, 77-73.
Jensen, as she often does, supplied nice perspective on the free-throw taking pictures. She famous that Illinois males’s star Terrence Shannon Jr. is an 81% foul shooter however went solely 4-for-10 towards Iowa State on Thursday night time. Even good free-throw shooters can miss, nevertheless it’s higher to know you’ve been there, carried out that earlier than.
“Just a little bit is the way it’s going to fall,” Jensen mentioned. “And it’s all of the work you’ve carried out to that time.”
Hawkeyes columnist Chad Leistikow has served for 29 years with The Des Moines Register and USA TODAY Sports activities Community. Chad is the 2023 INA Iowa Sports activities Columnist of the Yr and NSMA Co-Sportswriter of the Yr in Iowa. Be a part of Chad’s text-message group (free for subscribers) at HawkCentral.com/HawkeyesTexts. Comply with @ChadLeistikow on Twitter.