You can’t start slow to beat UCLA. You can’t let them shoot 60% from the field to beat UCLA and you can’t shoot 25% from the field in the first quarter and expect to beat UCLA. All three of those happened today and UCLA dominated from the jump to win back to back Women’s Big Ten Tournament Championships, 96-45
Iowa saw the first hoop of the game, a three-pointer from Stremlow but then UCLAs defensive skills took over to stop Iowa from scoring for six minutes. UCLA’s Bett’s did take a hard fall after battling Heiden for a rebound and was slow to get up but seemed back to normal within a minute. UCLA offense led by Rice then went on a 13-0 run over Iowa as Iowa was taking shots but couldn’t get them to fall with percentage falling to just ten percent. Iowa’s Heiden broke the dry spell but damage was done with a 5-13 score. A couple more UCLA buckets and a block put Iowa trailing by seventeen 5-22 after ten minutes of play. Iowa was struggling both in positioning down low as well as on-target shooting from outside.
Starting the second quarter, Iowa appeared to want to aggressively drive the lane with Feuerbach managing to draw a foul and hit two free throws. Some sloppy passes by Iowa allowed UCLA to extend their lead to nineteen within a couple minutes. A few threes from UCLA more than offset Iowa’s occasional buckets. UCLA faced a few foul calls in succession in the paint, and Iowa was no doubt hoping that would change their play style. Chit-Chat tried to cause some damage with a quick bucket and some fancy footwork transition shots with mixed effectiveness. Iowa did manage to get some good looks but couldn’t get the shots to fall. Stremlow hit a three with five seconds left, then followed by a charge call against UCLA’s Rice with one second to play. Iowa heads to the lockers down 20-42 at the half. This is a game where knew coming in that they needing everything had to click. Unfortunately for the Hawkeyes, that’s true of the opposition today with high on-target shots and dominance in the paint.
UCLA continued their domination after the half shooting 4 for 4 from the arc in just over two minutes putting the score at 23-55 prior to a timeout. Iowa’s Heiden did manage to force some points around Betts and Deal was able to drain a three but UCLA continued to pull away outshooting Iowa two to one. Wright put up seven points in the third, and Heiden contributed six but UCLA did not let up one bit closing out the third quarter with an expanding 31-point lead 36-67.
Iowa continued a strong effort but was unable to shake the Bruins in the final ten minutes as UCLA went on another extensive run putting this game completely outside of reach for Iowa. Iowa will regroup for the upcoming NCAA tournament where they are projected to be the number three seed. Tournament coverage is brought to you by Muscatine Power and Water and Ed Morse Chevy, Buick and GMC.
