By Rod Engblom
Despite some of the speculation that this year’s version of the Iowa women’s basketball season would take a step backwards after losing some of its best players from a Sweet 16 run, the Hawkeyes are still winning and are currently 8-1 on the season.
There are a few reasons they’re winning without the offensive powerhouse that last season’s seniors provided.
Team rebounds: 36.4 average in 2014-15, 41.0 average in 2015-16
Last season, rebounding was an issue for the Hawkeyes and the team was outrebounded by their opponents by an average of 4.6 per game.
Now, Iowa is outrebounding their opponents by 2.8 a game.
Last season, Bethany Doolittle, senior Samantha Logic, and sophomore Ally Disterhoft led the team in rebounds. Doolittle was the top rebounder and averaged 2.3 offensive and 4.7 defensive rebounds per game. Next was Logic who averaged 1.4 offensive rebounds and 5.5 defensive rebounds per game. Disterhoft was third in most rebounds on the team averaging 2.1 offensive and 3.7 defensive rebounds per game.
The distribution of this season’s team on rebounds is more spread out.
Senior Kali Peschel, sophomore Chase Coley, and Disterhoft lead the team in rebounding. Peschel averages 1.88 offensive and five defensive rebounds per game. Coley is next, averaging 1.4 offensive and 4.7 defensive rebounds per game.
Freshman Megan Gustafson and Carly Mohns have also contributed to rebounding coming off the bench. Gustafson averages 1.7 offensive and 2.8 defensive rebounds a game while Mohns averages one offensive and 2.1 defensive rebounds a game.
Las season, the next highest rebounder on the team was Peschel who averaged 1.1 offensive and 1.8 defensive rebounds a game.
Defense: Iowa field goal percentage: 45.7, opponent 36.5
Iowa has stepped up its defense to compensate for the lack of offensive production.
So far, the Hawks have limited their opponents to a 36.4 field-goal percentage, compared with last season, in which the team’s opponent’s shot 41.8 from the field.
In limiting their opponents field goal percentage, the Hawks limit their opponents scoring. They’ve limiting their opponents average points scored against them to 66.0, 6.6 fewer than last season.
Offensive rebounds allowed is also another good indicator of how the team has improved on their defense and they’ve improved their offensive rebounds allowed from last season which was 15.2 down to 14.4 so far this season.
Kastanek improving scoring by 9.9 points per game, Coley by 7.2
While high offensive production was expected out of Disterhoft who has improved her average scoring per game by 1.3 points per game, the two players who have stepped up their games have been Kastanek and Coley.
Coming off the bench last season, their scoring averages have increased dramatically.
Kastanek has improved her scoring average by 9.9 points a game along with having the second highest three-point percentage on the team and is making over 47-percent of them. Coley technically has the highest percentage at 1.00 but has only taken one attempt this season.
Coley has improved greatly as well and has improved her scoring average by 7.2 points.
With the combination of improved rebounding, defense, and bench players stepping up to fill the void of the seniors of last season, the Hawkeyes definitely have a chance to continue to play well.
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