By James Kay and Michael McCurdy
Heading on the road to take on No. 3 Maryland, the Iowa women’s basketball team had an opportunity to pick up a marquee win.
But in a back-and-forth first half, the Hawkeyes’ youth and lack of athleticism on defense allowed the Terrapins to take the lead and never look back, defeating the Hawkeyes, 100-81.
A bright spot for the Hawkeyes was freshman guard Kathleen Doyle, who led Iowa in points with 21, going 8-of-12 on field goals and 3-of-4 on 3-pointers.
Doyle, in a sense, is Iowa’s Swiss Army knife. By playing hard consistently, she has the ability to do it all, whether that be scoring, rebounding, assisting teammates, or playing aggressive defense. She tallied 5 assists and 3 steals in this contest, helping her establish the seventh spot in the Big Ten for steals per game.
“Kathleen had a great game,” Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder said in a release. “She played with defensive intensity and moxie; I really love the way she played.”
As for the rest of the team, senior Ally Disterhoft contributed 16 points on 6-of-14 shooting. Sophomore Tania Davis added 13 points and 6 assists to her stat line, and freshman Makenzie Meyer had a nice game with 11 points.
The Hawkeyes held their own with Maryland one and a half quarters into the game. After trailing by 5 going into the second quarter, Disterhoft sunk a free throw to tie the game at 30 with just under seven minutes remaining in the first half.
And then things went south pretty quickly for Iowa.
Maryland ended the half on a 26-6 run to dig the Hawkeyes a deep hole going into the break.
Coming into the game, the biggest area of concern for the Hawkeyes was defense and stopping Maryland’s Brionna Jones. A 26-6 run and giving up 100 points is a major area of concern for Bluder.
“You can’t have any lapses against them because they will exploit it, and that’s what we had,” Bluder said in the release. “Maryland will pounce when you do, and they did.”
The Terrapins did not relinquish the lead, because Iowa could not guard the post. Jones scored 28 points on 12-of-13 shooting.
Unable to defend Jones in the post, Iowa sophomore Megan Gustafson did not help herself by going 3-of-10 on field goals, tallying 10 points and only 6 rebounds. Playing against Jones is a tall task for any forward, but Gustafson’s effort in this contest was drastically different from the two teams’ first meeting, in which she went 7-of-11 on field goals.
“We have to work on our post defense after giving up that many paint points,” Bluder said in the release. “We have to work on defense this week.”
The loss dropped the Hawkeyes to 4-4 in conference play. They ended the month 3-3, and they now look forward to hosting Rutgers (6-16) on Thursday. Tip-off will be at 7 p.m. and will be televised on the Big Ten Plus network.
