No. 3 Iowa women's basketball rips Northwestern, drops 110

EVANSTON, Ill. — The No. 3 Iowa women’s basketball team defeated the Northwestern Wildcats 110-74 inside a sold-out Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston, Illinois, on Wednesday night.

Caitlin Clark and Iowa forward Hannah Stuelke played off of each other all night, the latter scoring 17 points as the receiver of a handful of the former’s 10 assists.

Clark had a record-breaking night as she scored 35 points on 11-of-22 from the field, 3-of-12 from deep, and a whopping 10-of-10 from the free throw line.

“[My three point shot] was just a little short — no leg — so that happens,” Clark said. “But [I got] to the basket, got to the free throw line … that’s just what you have to do.”

But both guards Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall scored well into the double-digits too, rounding out a hard-to-beat Hawkeye offense with 16 and 12 points, respectively.

And Iowa, who has struggled to rebound the ball in its last two contests against Ohio State and Nebraska, won that battle tonight with 42 to Northwestern’s 30 in addition to a very impressive 28 assists on just five turnovers.

“I think we did better on the glass,” Clark said. “Obviously, that’s been a problem for us the last two games, and … I felt like our offense was just flowing better.”

The first quarter was a bit of a defensive stalemate early on, both the Hawkeyes and Wildcats locked in with active hands while in their respective backcourts for the first five minutes of play.

Although Iowa’s shooters did not initially come out guns blazing on offense, Stuelke made her presence loud and clear in the post — and quite literally as she yelled “and one” after contact on a made layup and before hitting the free throw for three.

“I just thought she had a little more spring in her step,” Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder said. “She didn’t back down from anybody. She worked hard on defense down there. [The Wildcats were] pretty physical inside, and she worked hard on that. But obviously, I thought she just ran the floor a little bit harder tonight.”

But Northwestern clung closely to the Black and Gold as the two went into the media timeout, a crucial offensive board leading to a Wildcat layup and thus briefly exposing the Hawkeyes’ recent rebounding woes once again.

A tough Clark three from the right wing in transition that saw her quickly set her feet into the pull-up put the West Des Moines local at third on the NCAA women’s basketball all-time scoring list, and center Addison O’Grady got in on the action down low to bring the Iowa lead to 24-15 at the quarter’s end.

The Hawkeyes started to push the pace to open the second period, but those persistently quick and active Wildcat hands made two deflections that forced two turnovers to keep Northwestern in the game.

For the time being.

Clark’s offensive prowess continued as she took the volume of the Iowa offense on her back, scoring from multiple levels of the floor as her eight points in the quarter then put her second all-time on that NCAA list — as well as the Big Ten’s all-time leading scorer in both men’s and women’s basketball.

So the Hawkeyes carried the offensive momentum into a 47-32 lead as the buzzer indicated halftime.

All the way through

Clark scored at will for much of the third quarter, finding a wide open layup with no Northwestern help defense before another left wing three — that’s not to mention a powerful block on the other end of the floor.

Marshall got hot from deep as she drilled two of two attempts, and guard Kylie Feuerbach got in on the action as she made an impact on Iowa’s offensive possessions, sneaking in for a layup on a give-and-go from Martin before throwing a loose ball off of a Wildcat to keep it Hawkeyes’ ball.

Clark went down hard on a mid-layup bump from Northwestern center Caileigh Walsh and did not get up quickly, holding the left side of her head as she winced in pain.

So backup guard Taylor McCabe took over at the two until Clark re-entered the game, and the latter continued to run the offense around Stuelke for a 73-50 lead as the Hawkeyes entered the final quarter.

Martin and Marshall shared threes in the first minute of the fourth, Iowa refusing to let its foot off of the gas as Clark continued to work her way into the Northwestern defense and as the Iowa lead jumped to 30 points.

Bluder rotated her reserves in, with the likes of forward AJ Ediger and first-year guard Kennise Johnson, so Clark took a seat as the Hawkeyes secured the win.