By James Kay
While most rested over the Thanksgiving holiday, the Iowa women’s basketball team was hard at work. Entering Thanksgiving break, the Hawkeyes were 3-0 while defeating their opponents by a margin of 22 points a game.
Here is how the break panned out for the Hawkeyes.
Nov. 19 — 71-30 win over Massachusetts
The Hawkeyes pummeled Massachusetts to improve to 4-0 on the season. Iowa’s bench contributed 37 points; the Minutemen’s bench scored a meager 3. All but one of the Hawkeyes played 10 or more minutes.
“I thought we ran well, we passed the ball well, we crashed well, we had great paint points again,” Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder said in a release. “Sometimes against a zone, you don’t get those paint points. We were able to dominate the paint points again with 32. And then [Alexa Kastanek] shot the ball really well today, so that was really nice to see her coming in doing a good job shooting the ball.”
Kastanek scored a team-high 17 points and added 3 rebounds and 4 assists. Sophomore Meghan Gustafson had another solid game with 13 points and 8 rebounds.
Nov. 20 — 66-64 loss to South Dakota State
The Hawkeyes were handed their first loss of the season in a nail-biter to South Dakota State in Carver-Hawkeye. Iowa was unable to get the offense going until late, when the Hawkeyes erased a 9-point deficit with seven minutes to go.
“South Dakota State, again is a great basketball team, and we just were out of rhythm,” Bluder said in a release. “We didn’t run our offense well. It was the first time we really played behind, and we looked like it. We acted like it. We acted like we panicked instead of just sticking true to our offense and what was working for us.”
Gustafson led the charge with 21 points and 13 rebounds. Senior captain Ally Disterhoft contributed 16 points and 9 rebounds.
Nov. 24 — 78-65 loss to No. 9 UCLA
Iowa traveled to Mexico to take on the Bruins and came up empty for their second loss in as many games.
The Hawkeyes kept up with UCLA for a while; they only trailed by 4 points going into the half. Then, the magic ran out, and Iowa couldn’t crawl back into the game.
On the plus side, the Hawkeyes had four players register double-digit points. Disterhoft led the team with 16 points but turned the ball over 7 times. Gustafson had another solid outing with 15 points and 7 rebounds. Sophomore Tania Davis garnered 13 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists.
Nov. 25 — 90-75 win over James Madison
The Hawkeyes ended their trip to Mexico on a high note, as they took out James Madison. Iowa relied on the play of Gustafson, who had a game-high 23 points to go along with 8 rebounds. Disterhoft bounced back from the loss to UCLA with 20 points. She shot 75 percent from behind the arc.
The Hawkeyes will be back in Carver-Hawkeye this week as they take on No. 1 Notre Dame at 8 p.m. Wednesday.
