Hawks have nothing to lose
Every game in the Big Ten might come down to the final minute.
In fact, the last two Iowa games have, and that’s part of the reason why coach Lisa Bluder worked with her team during the bye this past week on end-of-game situations.
“Our first game against Northwestern (a 86-55 win), you’re not going to really have more of those,” senior Kamille Wahlin said. “Those are situations we have to be prepared for, to be able to handle close endings.”
Iowa (10-7 2-2) hopes it will have the chance to win in the final minutes Sunday at No. 17 Purdue (14-3, 4-0). The Hawkeyes haven’t won at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind., since 1998.
“I just think they’ve had really good teams,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “This year they’ve been grazing by. They’ll find a way to squeak out wins, which is tremendous. That’s what you want to do when you’re a good team is you find a way to win.”
The Hawkeyes found a way to win against Illinois, getting a late 3-pointer from Wahlin to force overtime. But against Nebraska, Iowa had the ball and a chance to tied the game and turned it over.
“When you’re down and it’s under a minute and you’re down a couple possessions, everything has got to go your way,” Bluder said. “You can’t have any mistakes.”
Iowa has had six days to heal up and practice. The Hawkeyes, who were left out of the ESPN bracketology projections this week, know they have work to do in order to earn a fifth consecutive NCAA berth.
“The big thing about this conference, you have no idea how it is going to end,” Wahlin said. “We can beat each other up pretty well. You’ve got to keep going on to the next game, and hopefully we can finish it out strong if we drop two or three.”
Purdue relies on a suffocating defense — a Big Ten-best 52.5 points per game plus the league-leader in blocked shots (6.1) and steals (10.5) per game.
Offensively, Brittany Rayburn is the only player averaging double figures in scoring with 15.1 per game.
Chances are the game is going to be low scoring and tight.
“Every game is a dog fight,” junior center Morgan Johnson said. “Games that go down to the wire are games we want to win.
“We’ve done a lot of work with end of the game situations. I feel we’ve improved and gotten more confidence from that. So when we are in that situation again, and we will be, we’ll come out on top.”
The Hawkeyes have to find a way to steal a couple on the road with a road trip to Penn State and No. 15 Nebraska coming up in the next two weeks.
“We just have to be confident,” junior Jaime Printy said. “We’re obviously the underdog, and we have nothing to lose. We’ve got to go in there with a positive attitude and know we’re prepared for this game.”
Category: Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball
