By Michael McCurdy
The Iowa women’s basketball team will travel to Grand Forks, North Dakota, for its first road test of the season against North Dakota today.
North Dakota is 0-2 so far, with losses to Drake and Texas Tech.
So far this season, the Hawkeyes have yet to leave Carver-Hawkeye for a game. Playing on the road could pose some serious problems early on for the Hawkeyes, especially because the starting lineup features two sophomores and two freshmen.
It is a rarity for Iowa women’s basketball to go on the road for a nonconference game in the middle of the week, then turn right back around for a pair of weekend home games.
Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder said the contest will create some challenges because of a lot of basketball in such short time, but the players are excited to get back out on the court.
“Our Big Ten schedule went to 16 games from 18, so that means we have to get 13 nonconference games in between Friday and Christmas,” Bluder said. “That’s a lot of basketball in a short amount of time. In fact, we’re playing eight games between last Friday and Dec. 1. It’s a lot of basketball, so it creates midweek opportunities.”
An area in which North Dakota might have the edge over the Hawkeyes is the guard matchups. North Dakota has two senior guards who average more than 15 points through two games. Senior Leah Szabla leads the team with 23 points per game, while the other standout senior guard, Makailah Dyer, puts up 16 points per contest.
Dakota is not a 3-point-heavy team, but Iowa must be aware that both Dyer and Szabla have the green light from behind the arc.
It will be interesting to see how freshmen guards Makenzie Meyer, Bre Cera, and Kathleen Doyle match up against the experienced senior duo of North Dakota.
Another thing to look for in this contest is if Bluder will continue her platoon system throughout the game, even if things get tight in the second half. It is a common theme in sports for coaches to want to get lots of players quality minutes early on in the season, but as time passes, usually the number of minutes shrinks.
Expect junior forward Chase Coley to get the most minutes off the bench behind Doyle, because Bluder and the team needs someone off the bench to be this year’s “spark plug,” and Coley said she will embrace that role.
