By Jake Mosbach
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After it suffered through a demoralizing three-game losing streak, life is looking up for the Iowa women’s basketball team.
Head coach Lisa Bluder’s Hawkeyes have now ticked off two-straight wins after downing Northwestern in Evanston, Illinois, on Jan. 31. On Thursday, the team will travel to Bloomington, Indiana, to battle the Hoosiers.
Iowa is nursing some injuries, and Bluder said sophomore forward Christina Buttenham is still day-to-day with a head injury that she suffered in practice last week.
“She suffered a concussion in practice,” Bluder said. “She did not make the trip to Northwestern with us.”
In the Jan. 31 meeting with the Wildcats, freshman guard Tania Davis exited the game with an apparent eye injury. However, she did return to the game, playing significant minutes with a butterfly bandage over her right eyebrow. Bluder said Davis later needed stitches.
Davis, with her eye bandaged, bruised, and swollen, believes the injury would be a non-factor.
“My eye didn’t really cause any problems against Northwestern,” she said. “It’s just a little swollen, but the swelling will go down. I don’t foresee it causing any problems at all.”
Coley’s resurgence
Sophomore forward Chase Coley has been an absolute force inside recently, scoring 19 points against Northwestern to go along with 7 rebounds. She had 21 points against Michigan the game before that.
Bluder has certainly noticed.
The coach said Coley’s arsenal features plenty of weapons, and the Minneapolis native is thriving in her new position of power forward. Coley averages 11 points per game in just under 24 minutes.
“[Coley] is shooting the ball so well, and I think she’s really enjoying this change of position,” Bluder said. “She’s embraced it, and I think she’s having fun with it. She’s enjoying her role, she’s talking, and she’s big in the zone.”
‘A new season’
After the team’s third-straight loss — a 90-73 defeat at Purdue on Jan. 24 — Bluder and her coaching staff knew that something needed to change.
When the team returned to Iowa City, Bluder sat her players down and held a mock press conference — it was the start of a new season.
“It was really fun,” Bluder said. “We acted like it was a brand-new season — it was media day. We started all over again. We had to start fresh, and it’s worked.”
Every member of the team buys into the idea, Bluder said. Freshman forward Megan Gustafson even referred to it in an interview after the team’s victory over Northwestern.
“We started all over after [the Purdue loss],” she said. “We’re 2-0 now, and it feels good to get back out there and get a win.”
Davis agreed, summing up the new way of Hawkeye thinking.
“[The new season] is really about letting go of the past, looking forward to the future, and playing in the now,” Davis said.
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