The No. 3 Iowa women’s basketball team will look to three-peat as the Big Ten Tournament champions in Minneapolis, Minnesota, this weekend — beginning with a quarterfinal contest on Friday.
The Hawkeyes, up to third from sixth in the AP Poll, finished the regular season 26-4 overall after beating the Big Ten regular season champions in then-No. 2 Ohio State, 93-83, on Sunday.
With stars such as Jake from State Farm and Travis Scott in attendance, Caitlin Clark passed Pete Maravich to become the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer in men’s or women’s basketball as she scored 35 points on 6-of-17 from deep with nine assists.
Forward Hannah Stuelke followed with 23 points and nine rebounds while guard Gabbie Marshall got hot from deep with 12 points to quiet any doubters of her role as a starter on this team. Guard Kate Martin heated up late for 11.
On Tuesday, the Big Ten announced Clark as this season’s Big Ten Player of the Year — her third-straight honor — while Stuelke and Martin were named Second Team All-Big Ten.
Now, the Hawkeyes will travel back to the Target Center in Minneapolis with a big boost of momentum behind them to take a shot at their third-straight Big Ten Tournament Championship.
In fact, Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder dubbed the home of the Timberwolves and Lynx “Carver North” last season for the swaths of Iowa fans that were in attendance at last year’s tournament in the same location.
But the Hawkeyes will miss starting guard Molly Davis for the tournament as she went down hard with a knee injury in Sunday’s contest against OSU. Davis will take time to rehab the knee with hopes of returning for the NCAA Tournament in two weeks.
The second-seeded Hawkeyes earned a double bye and will play in the quarterfinals on Friday. There, they will see the winner of the contest between the 10th-seeded Wisconsin Badgers and seventh-seeded Penn State Nittany Lions on Thursday.
Wisconsin finished the season 13-15 overall and 6-12 in the Big Ten on a rough losing skid to the close, dropping games to Purdue, Maryland, and Michigan State — each by double-digits.
The Hawkeyes beat the Badgers twice this season: 87-65 on Dec. 10 in Madison and 96-50 on Jan. 16 in Iowa City.
Penn State, on the other hand, finished the season 18-11 overall and 9-9 in the Big Ten, winning its last two over Purdue and then Minnesota — the latter with a whopping final score of 93-34.
And as Iowa beat Penn State, 111-93, on Feb. 8 in Iowa City, the Nittany Lions dropped six-straight games before their final two wins — including to Wisconsin by five on Feb. 11. So it’s anyone’s game for who will take a shot at the Hawkeyes the following day.
On Iowa’s side of the bracket, Minnesota escaped Rutgers and will play Michigan on Thursday, the winner of that game playing third-seeded Indiana. The winner of that contest will then play the winner of Iowa’s game for a matchup in the semifinals and a shot at the championship game on Sunday.
