The No. 2 Iowa women’s basketball team returned to its last-season self in a 113-90 win against the Drake Bulldogs Sunday night in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The Hawkeyes, after struggling from the field in a loss to Kansas State on Thursday, shot 64 percent from the field, 54 percent from deep, and 91 percent from the free throw line in a big bounce-back shooting performance tonight.
Caitlin Clark broke the NCAA record for most 30-point games in a career, finishing the night with 35 points and 10 assists.
But sixth-year graduate student Kate Martin stole the show, finishing with a career-high 25 points on 10-of-12 shooting.
“All week, my teammates and coaches have been building me up, and I just shot it with confidence,” Martin said in the post-game press conference. “It’s not fun when you don’t make a three in the first four games.”
Center Sharon Goodman and guard Molly Davis also finished with double-digit points, scoring 15 and 10, respectively.
The Hawkeyes shot 54 percent from three, going 13-of-24.
“I thought our players outside of me played really well and stepped up,” Clark said. “Kate played really well tonight, and that’s something we really need from her and something that she’s very capable of doing every single night.”
Iowa shot a season-best 64 percent on 70 attempts against the Bulldogs. During last season’s run to the NCAA National Championship, Iowa led the NCAA in field goal percentage with 51 percent.
“I thought we came out and resumed playing Iowa basketball,” Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder said. “I thought our energy level was a lot better out there tonight, and we were more focused.”
Coming into this game, Martin was shooting zero percent from three on eight attempts in four previous games — but would turn it around by going 3-of-4 from three against the Bulldogs and 2-of-2 from the free throw line.
“Kate had a special game for us and played tonight like how she was playing during the summer,” Bluder said.
Bluder is referencing this past summer during the team’s trip to Italy and Croatia when Martin — a three-year starter who averaged a career-high 7.7 points last season — shot confidently and consistently as the Hawkeyes blew past the Croatian and Italian All-Star teams.
Molly Davis had her second-consecutive 10-point game and went 2-of-2 from three after missing her previous four attempts in previous games.
Both Bluder and Clark mentioned how much Davis has grown with the team since transferring to Iowa last season from Central Michigan.
“She’s not going to shy away from the moment,” Clark said. “[Molly] is somebody that’s had a lot of experience playing basketball and has been playing really good since the beginning of the year.”
Iowa even got a spark off of the bench when second-year guard Taylor McCabe came in during the second quarter and went 2-of-2 from three.
The Hawkeyes’ knowledge of putting the ball into the bucket helped on the other side of the floor as they also held a Bulldogs team that came into Carver averaging over 40 percent on 12 threes attempted per game to just 26 percent tonight.
“I thought we could have honestly played a little bit better defense,” Clark said. “The offense [Drake] runs is really good.”