Iowa’s Melissa Dixon nailed a 2-point jumper with three seconds left in regulation to help the Hawkeyes tie Northwestern at 65 points. Her mind was set on overtime.
But the Iowa defense wasn’t there to help. Northwestern’s Karly Roser took the inbounds pass coast-to-coast for the game-winning lay-up, and helped the Wildcats to a 67-65 upset victory on Sunday afternoon.
“Tough loss,” Iowa women’s basketball head coach Lisa Bluder said after the game. “I feel like we let that one slip through our hands. Kind of gave it away to them.”
The Hawkeyes (16-7, 5-4 Big Ten) led for the majority of the game, limiting Northwestern (11-11, 3-6) to just 18 first-half points on eight made baskets. Iowa finished the first half with all of the momentum, ending on a 16-4 scoring run in the final nine minutes and leading 29-18.
But the second half showcased different Wildcats. They converted on nearly 60-percent of their shots from the field in the second frame after shooting an abysmal 29.6-percent in the first. Iowa only made twenty baskets in total from the court.
Without the team-high 21 points from Dixon, Iowa made just 13 shots all game. Dixon paced the Hawkeyes coming off the bench, shooting 7-of-10 from the field — including a career-high, and Carver-Hawkeye Arena record, 6 three-pointers.
“After the first couple of shots, it just gave me a lot of confidence,” Dixon said about her 3-point shooting effort. “I’m a lot shorter than a lot of the girls out there, so to get my shot off, I have to release it pretty fast.”
Northwestern slowly closed in on Iowa’s lead, chipping away point differences as the second half wore on. It didn’t help the Hawkeyes any that they weren’t able to knock down shots of their own, either.
Senior center Morgan Johnson fouled out of the game with 8:51 left, which helped Northwestern find more holes in Iowa’s defensive zone. This led to a clear advantage of points in the paint for the Wildcats, who totaled 32 against Iowa’s 20.
Another issue for the Hawkeyes came from the lack of production from Jaime Printy. The guard went just 2-of-6 from the field despite sinking all eight charity shots. Northwestern did all it could to take away Iowa’s deep-threat in Printy, who made neither of her two shots from beyond the arc.
“We have to play 40 minutes of the game,” Printy said. “We had a huge letup [in the second half], and we can’t do that … We have some really tough games coming up, and we’re going to have to play a lot better.”
Printy has normally been tabbed as Iowa’s late-game heroine, but she wasn’t able to produce the numbers observers are used to seeing. She also wasn’t able to get to the free-throw line late in the game, where she thrives with the result on the line. The Linn-Mar High product has hit 29-of-29 in the final two minutes and is a perfect 6-of-6 in overtime, but didn’t get to line under such circumstances against the Wildcats.
That, according to Northwestern head coach Joe McKeown, was a huge reason Northwestern stunned the Carver crowd of 4,697.
“It was a great basketball game,” he said. “We were fortunate enough to make one more play at the end.”