The Iowa women’s hoops team has now beaten five ranked teams this season. Sunday afternoon’s victim was No. 12 Purdue, whom the Hawkeyes beat, 62-46, for their third conference victory of the year.
The win was also a career milestone for Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder, who coached her 600th win in her 28th season of coaching.
“It’s just one more than 599,” she said, smiling. “But it also gives you an opportunity to reflect on the women that you’ve been able to coach … that is really neat.”
Many of Bluder’s current players put on quite the show for the crowd of 8,576 who came out to support the Hawkeyes (14-5, 2-2 Big Ten). Iowa started off hot on both sides of the ball, holding Purdue (15-3, 4-1) to single digits in points for almost the first 15 minutes of the game before going into halftime with a 41-18 advantage.
Jaime Printy and Melissa Dixon led all scorers with 15 points apiece. Printy, in addition to sinking all four of her free throws, dropped three treys in the game. Those three pushed the senior into second place on Iowa’s career 3-pointers list with 232. Printy only trails Lindsey Meder, who holds the record with 261 3-pointers.
Dixon and Theairra Taylor also added three treys each, giving Iowa 9 for the game, just two shy of its season mark. Many of the nine 3-pointers came from inbounds passing from the baseline.
One of Dixon’s treys came at a crucial point in the game. Purdue had marched back into the contest during the second half and had cut the margin to 10 points with a little more than eight minutes to go. Samantha Logic, on an inbounds pass, found a wide-open Dixon for one of her 10 assists.
Dixon proceeded to sink a 3-pointer, giving Iowa a 52-39 lead.
“We ran [the plays] correctly, and our shots were wide open,” she said. “Last practice, we spent some time doing drills off our inbounds plays, and I think that really helped out tonight.”
The Hawkeyes also got a solid performance from Kayla Timmerman. Bluder had said she was upset about not playing the freshman more and decided to send her in for Morgan Johnson on a few occasions on Sunday.
The result was 4 points on 2-of-3 from the field and two important, well-earned rebounds. She also recorded a block and a steal. Her presence was noted when she was on the floor, and Bluder was very pleased with her performance.
“She’s worked really hard,” Bluder said. “We need Kayla to go when Morgan needs a breather, gets injured, all those reasons. It’s wonderful for her to come out and have a good game.”
Timmerman appeared very humble when asked on what she thought of her performance against Purdue. The term she used was “blessed” because of what all that she’s learned under the teaching of Johnson.
“I just want to help out in anyway that I can,” Timmerman said. “I always play my heart out in every game.”