On Thursday night at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Iowa women’s basketball was defeated by No. 23 Northwestern for the second time this season, 87-80.

The Hawkeyes came out of the gate slowly, committing eight first-quarter turnovers. While Iowa did claw back into the game in the second quarter, it still trailed at halftime.

Early in the third quarter, it appeared the Hawkeyes had finally come to life, piecing together an 11-0 run to take a nine-point lead. But Iowa’s momentum would quickly run out, as the Wildcats reclaimed the lead before the final buzzer sounded.

“Basketball is a game of runs,” Clark said. “We went on a run, we knew they were going to strike back, and they’re a great basketball team, that’s why they’re ranked. I wasn’t surprised, I think once we do get that lead, we need to be a little smarter with the basketball, take better shots, just things that will help us increase that lead.”

Iowa’s inability to maintain the lead could be chalked up to its careless handling of the basketball. The Hawkeyes turned the ball over 23 times, leading to 28 Wildcat points. Comparatively, Iowa only scored six points off turnovers on their way to losing the turnover battle, 23-9.

Junior center Monika Czinano believes most of Iowa’s turnover woes in 2020-21 are self-inflicted.

“I think [Northwestern] is a great defensive team, they’re always right up in your face,” Czinano said. “I think that, for us, turnovers a lot of times, yes, the defense is playing up and it’s really hard to make passes, but a lot of times we do it to ourselves, we speed ourselves up, we think we have to make shots really quick when in reality we don’t. We can work and dissect the defense … A lot of the issues we need to fix within ourselves.”

Czinano was one of Iowa’s lone bright spots on the evening, pouring in a career-high 34 points on 17-of-19 shooting and pulling down 11 rebounds.

Czinano’s previous career high was 28 points – a mark she set playing Northwestern in Evanston earlier this year. That night, the Watertown, Minnesota, native shot 13-of-14 from the floor and corralled 12 rebounds.

“I knew going into this game that using our size advantage, using our bigs, was going to be a critical part of this game,” Czinano said. “So, I think it was just having that mentality that I would need to do a little bit more. But again, it wouldn’t have been possible without the passes my teammates make, you can only make that sort of shooting percentage when your teammates are finding you and you’re wide open.”

Although Czinano put up the most shot attempts of any Hawkeye on Thursday night, it wasn’t enough for Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder.

“[Northwestern] doesn’t have an answer for Monika,” Bluder said. “She shoots 19 times, she probably should’ve shot 25, they have no answer for her… keep going, right? Why stop doing something that’s working?”

After a brief, two-day respite, the Hawkeyes will hit the road for matchup with Minnesota in Minneapolis. Tipoff between the Hawkeyes and Golden Gophers is scheduled for 4 p.m. on Sunday. The game will be streamed on BTN+.