Everyone who has ever watched an ISU-Iowa game knows these are battles. Throw the records and stats out the window. Lately, Iowa has owned the Sisters with only last year's win at Hilton breaking a five game win streak by the Bluderettes.
This game started off cold cold cold. The sisters were 0-6 with four misses from deep. Iowa edged out 6-0 with three baskets by Czinano. Soares got the first basket with a three and promptly followed it with her first foul. The sisters were just not hitting anything. Five minutes into this one and ISU was 1-10 from the floor. Yet, the defense was keeping things closer than they could be 7-3 Iowa.
The sisters are chucking up three after three and barely drawing iron. In the meantime Iowa is going inside and building a lead. 9-3 after six minutes. Even point blank layups are missing. It’s now 1-15 from the floor. This is ugly.
Ryan finally converted a traditional three to end the misery and Donarski follows with two. On the good news front Jordao is in! Boom a three from Joens and the score was tied at 11 with a min left in the first. This was not a good offensive exhibition by either team. Neither team shooting well with ISU at 22% and 28% for Iowa. Quarter ends tied at 11.
ISU would take the lead on a drive by Donarski. but the offense is still way out of sync. On the plus side, Clark has yet to score. To this point, Ryan is forcing things and that allowed Iowa to retake the lead. We turned the ball over for the 9th time and Ryan is struggling to run the offense which has gone stone cold again. Seems like a theme this year. Four min into the second and we have two points 15-13 Iowa. Clark finally hits her first with 5 min remaining to give Iowa the lead 17-15. A trey after an offensive board and a complete defensive lapse would extend that lead to 20-15.
Weird possession of the game. We hit a three pointer with a foul committed underneath the basket, so we retain possession and then hit another three pointer to take a one point lead. 21-20. Soares followed that with a three and Clark answers right back ending an 11-0 ISU run. It was 26-23 sisters. Czinano picked up her second foul and I wondered if this would be a turning point. It didn't turn out that way. What we did see was Soares missing two free throws. That’s like a turnover in my book. This would be a theme for her tonight.
At halftime it’s 28-23 after a 13-3 ISU run. This is where you should just turn the game off because...
The offense in the third is just fits and stutters again. Soares picked up her third foul and all of a sudden the two on Czinano don't seem so big. Warnock follows two FT by Czinano to pull within two at 30-28. Czinano then picks up her third foul one minute in. Are the posts neutralizing each other? One critical factor is our free throw shooting being so bad at 3-9 to this point. Soares has three misses and it would get worse. What also makes it worse is Clark is warming up and hits a trey to make it a 1 point game again.
Then there is the ISU offense. Ryan’s drives today are just off. Goes up too hard. Is she expecting contact? Players are standing. No screens. When they do get open...misses.
Clark would hit a deep three after a Ryan miss to give Iowa a two point lead 36–34. Then Iowa State promptly turns the ball over and Iowa scores. The wheels were starting to fall off the bus. A perfect example of the ISU dysfunction was a horrible forced shot by Diew that barely hits the backboard. Iowa went on a 9-0 run and built a six point lead. The sisters in the mean time had six points in the quarter and was being outscored 17-6. It only got worse. Our defense was letting us down as well as Iowa continued to find open looks. We fouled. They made their free throws. Another prime example? Clark hits another downtowner and it’s a 43-37 lead for Iowa. What do we do? We follow with a inbounds five second call and boom…it’s 45-37. By the end of three this thing was nearly over. Iowa bombs the Sisters to the tune of 27-8 and has a 50-37 lead. I felt like I was watching the melt-down against North Carolina all over again.
The fourth ended up being a hodge hodge for ISU. The tough part here is that Iowa continues to gain confidence as Iowa State just struggles to even find itself. Didn't matter who shoots. for Iowa as keeps draining buckets and Iowa State keeps missing. Soares picked up her fourth foul as her defense is starting to suffer. With Iowa shooting nearly 50% from deep (and it wasn't just Clark) they would build a 60-44 lead.
Than a spark. On back to back possessions Joens would hit three pointers and all of a sudden it was 60-50. Was there life? Well, whatever life there was was squashed not by Iowa, but by the inexplicable decisions to stop feeding Ashley the ball. We chucked up some very unadvisable shots with Ashley sitting wide open in some cases. When this happened Iowa shut the door by extending the lead to 18. This game was effectively over. Iowa was content to dribble the clock away and force us to foul. They literally could not score every possession if they just dribble clock and we lose
Final 70-57
Observations
At this point we’ve seen the ISU offense disappear in the second half of two big games. Until they figure it out this team is going to struggle. Good teams will make them pay again and again. Just my instant reaction opinion, but this is barely a top 25 team right now. This offensive misfiring is a killer.
Soares - started good (a la North Carolina) and disappeared again. Horrid free throw shooting (0-6). 5 turnovers. Ten points with nearly all in the first half. Four fouls. This should be a real learning moment for her.
Joens - the only reason we were even in this game is her heroics. She had 15 and 7 and tried to put the team on her back, but the team wouldn't let her. Had to be frustrating.
Donarksi - Defense was ok. Clark we know is going to get hers and she eventually did (19), but that didn't beat us. Lexi had ten points and 4 assists.
Ryan - In many ways this was possibly her worst game as a floor general this year. Had 15 points, but couldn’t get the offense going. Not all her fault, but there were some bad moments and choices.
Offense - shooting this horribly will lose ISU lots of games. The Big 12 is a meat grinder with some very good offensive teams. If this team can't figure it out, what promised to be a once in a lifetime season will look like the 2021 Football team. Yes, they can do it, but they don't have a lot more time to figure it out.
The bench - Not ONE SINGLE POINT. Nada. Four rebounds. Five fouls. The depth I often brag about didn't show up tonight.
If you look at some of the stats things don't look as bad as this game really was. Iowa won the rebound battle by six. Meh. Iowa made one more free throw (but we missed 7 more). OK...that was bad...but most of those misses were on Soares. Three pointers? Man, it seemed like every time we turned around iowa was hitting one. But they made the EXACT same number as we did. Nine. The difference? We missed seven more attempts. Here's a big number. Assists. We had 9 on 20 baskets. Iowa? 18 on 26 baskets. Bingo. They were moving the ball and finding the open player. They were setting screens. We weren't.
This game leaves me with a lot of concerns. Not terrible ones, but we've now seen our offense starting to show a tendency to disappear. It's as if they forget what got them here in the first place. That's very disturbing. With games against tough Drake and Villanova squads coming up, ISU had better watch out. The defense still needs work. There were too many break downs in the second half. But the offense. Woof. That's two of the last three games where we couldn't find a bucket if a string were tied to the ball and it was run through the hoop. Soul searching time ladies. Soul searching time.
This game started off cold cold cold. The sisters were 0-6 with four misses from deep. Iowa edged out 6-0 with three baskets by Czinano. Soares got the first basket with a three and promptly followed it with her first foul. The sisters were just not hitting anything. Five minutes into this one and ISU was 1-10 from the floor. Yet, the defense was keeping things closer than they could be 7-3 Iowa.
The sisters are chucking up three after three and barely drawing iron. In the meantime Iowa is going inside and building a lead. 9-3 after six minutes. Even point blank layups are missing. It’s now 1-15 from the floor. This is ugly.
Ryan finally converted a traditional three to end the misery and Donarski follows with two. On the good news front Jordao is in! Boom a three from Joens and the score was tied at 11 with a min left in the first. This was not a good offensive exhibition by either team. Neither team shooting well with ISU at 22% and 28% for Iowa. Quarter ends tied at 11.
ISU would take the lead on a drive by Donarski. but the offense is still way out of sync. On the plus side, Clark has yet to score. To this point, Ryan is forcing things and that allowed Iowa to retake the lead. We turned the ball over for the 9th time and Ryan is struggling to run the offense which has gone stone cold again. Seems like a theme this year. Four min into the second and we have two points 15-13 Iowa. Clark finally hits her first with 5 min remaining to give Iowa the lead 17-15. A trey after an offensive board and a complete defensive lapse would extend that lead to 20-15.
Weird possession of the game. We hit a three pointer with a foul committed underneath the basket, so we retain possession and then hit another three pointer to take a one point lead. 21-20. Soares followed that with a three and Clark answers right back ending an 11-0 ISU run. It was 26-23 sisters. Czinano picked up her second foul and I wondered if this would be a turning point. It didn't turn out that way. What we did see was Soares missing two free throws. That’s like a turnover in my book. This would be a theme for her tonight.
At halftime it’s 28-23 after a 13-3 ISU run. This is where you should just turn the game off because...
The offense in the third is just fits and stutters again. Soares picked up her third foul and all of a sudden the two on Czinano don't seem so big. Warnock follows two FT by Czinano to pull within two at 30-28. Czinano then picks up her third foul one minute in. Are the posts neutralizing each other? One critical factor is our free throw shooting being so bad at 3-9 to this point. Soares has three misses and it would get worse. What also makes it worse is Clark is warming up and hits a trey to make it a 1 point game again.
Then there is the ISU offense. Ryan’s drives today are just off. Goes up too hard. Is she expecting contact? Players are standing. No screens. When they do get open...misses.
Clark would hit a deep three after a Ryan miss to give Iowa a two point lead 36–34. Then Iowa State promptly turns the ball over and Iowa scores. The wheels were starting to fall off the bus. A perfect example of the ISU dysfunction was a horrible forced shot by Diew that barely hits the backboard. Iowa went on a 9-0 run and built a six point lead. The sisters in the mean time had six points in the quarter and was being outscored 17-6. It only got worse. Our defense was letting us down as well as Iowa continued to find open looks. We fouled. They made their free throws. Another prime example? Clark hits another downtowner and it’s a 43-37 lead for Iowa. What do we do? We follow with a inbounds five second call and boom…it’s 45-37. By the end of three this thing was nearly over. Iowa bombs the Sisters to the tune of 27-8 and has a 50-37 lead. I felt like I was watching the melt-down against North Carolina all over again.
The fourth ended up being a hodge hodge for ISU. The tough part here is that Iowa continues to gain confidence as Iowa State just struggles to even find itself. Didn't matter who shoots. for Iowa as keeps draining buckets and Iowa State keeps missing. Soares picked up her fourth foul as her defense is starting to suffer. With Iowa shooting nearly 50% from deep (and it wasn't just Clark) they would build a 60-44 lead.
Than a spark. On back to back possessions Joens would hit three pointers and all of a sudden it was 60-50. Was there life? Well, whatever life there was was squashed not by Iowa, but by the inexplicable decisions to stop feeding Ashley the ball. We chucked up some very unadvisable shots with Ashley sitting wide open in some cases. When this happened Iowa shut the door by extending the lead to 18. This game was effectively over. Iowa was content to dribble the clock away and force us to foul. They literally could not score every possession if they just dribble clock and we lose
Final 70-57
Observations
At this point we’ve seen the ISU offense disappear in the second half of two big games. Until they figure it out this team is going to struggle. Good teams will make them pay again and again. Just my instant reaction opinion, but this is barely a top 25 team right now. This offensive misfiring is a killer.
Soares - started good (a la North Carolina) and disappeared again. Horrid free throw shooting (0-6). 5 turnovers. Ten points with nearly all in the first half. Four fouls. This should be a real learning moment for her.
Joens - the only reason we were even in this game is her heroics. She had 15 and 7 and tried to put the team on her back, but the team wouldn't let her. Had to be frustrating.
Donarksi - Defense was ok. Clark we know is going to get hers and she eventually did (19), but that didn't beat us. Lexi had ten points and 4 assists.
Ryan - In many ways this was possibly her worst game as a floor general this year. Had 15 points, but couldn’t get the offense going. Not all her fault, but there were some bad moments and choices.
Offense - shooting this horribly will lose ISU lots of games. The Big 12 is a meat grinder with some very good offensive teams. If this team can't figure it out, what promised to be a once in a lifetime season will look like the 2021 Football team. Yes, they can do it, but they don't have a lot more time to figure it out.
The bench - Not ONE SINGLE POINT. Nada. Four rebounds. Five fouls. The depth I often brag about didn't show up tonight.
If you look at some of the stats things don't look as bad as this game really was. Iowa won the rebound battle by six. Meh. Iowa made one more free throw (but we missed 7 more). OK...that was bad...but most of those misses were on Soares. Three pointers? Man, it seemed like every time we turned around iowa was hitting one. But they made the EXACT same number as we did. Nine. The difference? We missed seven more attempts. Here's a big number. Assists. We had 9 on 20 baskets. Iowa? 18 on 26 baskets. Bingo. They were moving the ball and finding the open player. They were setting screens. We weren't.
This game leaves me with a lot of concerns. Not terrible ones, but we've now seen our offense starting to show a tendency to disappear. It's as if they forget what got them here in the first place. That's very disturbing. With games against tough Drake and Villanova squads coming up, ISU had better watch out. The defense still needs work. There were too many break downs in the second half. But the offense. Woof. That's two of the last three games where we couldn't find a bucket if a string were tied to the ball and it was run through the hoop. Soul searching time ladies. Soul searching time.
