When Southeastern Louisiana said Iowa women’s basketball wasn’t a defensive team, the Hawkeyes took it personally.

In a video posted to Twitter on Monday, Southeastern Louisiana head coach Ayla Guzzardo said, “They know they’re not a big defensive team, we know that. They don’t really want to play defense as much as we love to play defense. We’re a great defensive team, they’re a great offensive team. Something’s gotta give.”

For the first time in program history, the @LionUpWBB team is going dancing!

I spent the day in Hammond to preview Southeastern’s first-round matchup against Iowa. pic.twitter.com/ItCo33ImR0

— Kendall Duncan (@kendallduncanTV) March 14, 2023

What gave was Southeastern Louisiana’s defense.

The Lions averaged 54.5 points allowed per game coming into their first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance. At halftime, Iowa had 54 points.

Junior guard Caitlin Clark led the charge for the Hawkeyes in the first half, starting the game 4-for-4 from the field. She finished the first half with 19 points.

The Hawkeyes ended the game with 95 points, blowing the Lions’ points allowed average out of the water. And the Lions’ defense didn’t phase the Hawkeyes.

“I think that we’ve seen just about anything you can do in the game of basketball at this point,” Clark said. “We’ve seen box in one, triangle in two, we’ve seen zone, we’ve seen everything. They were physical; they were. They were a scrappy team, picking up full court man-to-man, but I really don’t know what there is out there that you can do to us that we really haven’t seen.”

Iowa also held Southeastern Louisiana to its second-lowest scoring total of the season, as the Lions finished with 43 points.

The Lions scored just 11 points in the second half, going 3-for-32 from the field. Southeastern Louisiana ended the game with a 25 percent shooting clip from the floor.

And it came down to Iowa’s defensive scheme.

“They went zone,” Guzzardo said. “I anticipated it, but when you look at a Big Ten team, you think they can guard a little Southland school. I’ll be honest with you, you would think they could guard us man-to-man. But they went zone. Great game plan because we don’t shoot the three-ball well.”

Southeastern Louisiana went just 4-of-22 from the 3-point line, which Guzzardo said would be good for a Southland conference game — but not against a Big Ten school like Iowa.

But the Hawkeyes’ domination over the Lions also came with a disparity — the second-seeded Big Ten Tournament champions on their home court versus the 15th-seeded Southland Conference champions.

“Yeah, we saw that video,” senior guard Kate Martin said. “I think a lot of people did, but I mean, I respect them for having that fire, that competitive edge. We didn’t want anybody to come in here and just roll over and let us win; they took it at us and I mean, that’s all you really can do.

“Obviously that doesn’t feel good. Whenever you hear people say that about your team, your teammates, you know, you get protective over them. But I think it was a little bit of both; us versus them, conference versus conference.”

With the win over the Lions, the Hawkeyes advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Iowa will play 10th-seeded Georgia at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday at 2 p.m., and the game will air on ABC.