Iowa’s 83-72 win over Ohio State was the school’s highest-ranked road win in school history.
The Hawks had a big time challenge.
They had to travel to Columbus and face the undefeated and 2nd ranked Buckeyes. Ohio State had won the last four games against Iowa and McKenna Warnock was out with an injured rib.
How did they do it?
How about a 51-31 advantage on the boards?
Hannah Stuelke had a career high 14, Kate Martin 11 and Caitlin Clark 10.
That helped Iowa have a 15-8 advantage on second chance points.
It sure helps when the Hawks are 13-14 (92.9%) from the free throw line.
It’s also nice to have Caitlin Clark on your side. The 6-1 super star played all 40 minutes.
“Caitlin did a really good job,” said coach Bluder. “Triple-double, 28 points, 15 assists and ten rebounds…are you kidding?”
That’s the fourth game in row that Caitlin has had ten or more assists and her eighth career triple double. Most of Monica Czinano layups and 22 points came from Caitlin but watching Caitlin throw that half court pass to Hannah Stuelke or Gabby Marshall is like watching Joe Montana hit Jerry Rice. (I know that dates me)
“So proud of our team,” said Lisa. “We had to overcome the loss of McKenna. Monica was in foul trouble. We did a great job of staying locked in and focused.”
Monica played only 23 minutes and 48 seconds but scored 22 points on 11-13 from the floor.
Kate Martin had her first double-double of the season with 13 points and 11 rebounds and Hannah came off the bench pulling down 13 rebounds with eight points.
That young lady is just scratching the surface of how good she can be.
One of Lisa Bluder’s favorite stats is 24 assists on 31 baskets.
The Hawkeyes looked sharp.
Iowa 80 Nebraska 76
The Cornhuskers started strong (10-0) and ended strong (26-13) in the fourth quarter but the Hawkeyes had enough in-between to get their 17th win and improve to 9-1 in the Big Ten.
The Hawkeyes led 67-50 at the end of the third quarter but then they couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn in the 4th quarter.
Iowa was 2-14 (14.3%) from the floor and 1-6 (16.7%) from three in the final period.
Thank goodness they made 8-10 (80%) from the free throw line in the 4th quarter.
Caitlin Clark, who finished with 33, scored 10 points in the final quarter including 8-10 from the free throw line.
Iowa did control the boards (43-32) and had 18 assists with Caitlin and Kate Martin dishing out nine and six, respectively. Caitlin also had 12 rebounds and notched her fifth straight double-double.
“It was not a pretty win for us,” said coach Bluder. “We just didn’t shoot the ball as well as we’re capable of. We took a lot of hard two’s but did a great job on the boards. We held their 3-point shooting to 30% (9-30).”
Monica was 7-10 from the floor and finished with 17.
Hannah Stuelke came off the bench with 12 points.
In the last five games, Hannah has scored 55 points and pulled down 36 rebounds.
Hawkeye Men
The Hawks had two games last week losing at Michigan State 63-61 and beating Rutgers 93-82 at Carver.
Iowa had two chances to beat the Spartans in the last five seconds but Payton Stanford could not connect on consecutive threes and Iowa dropped to 12-8, 4-5 in the Big Ten.
For me, the game was lost at the free throw line.
Iowa came into the game shooting 73% from the charity strip.
They were 6-13 (46%) against the Spartans including going 5-10 in the second half.
Ahron Ulis, who had his best game as a Hawk with 17 points and three assists came into the game shooting 79% from the free throw line, was 0-3.
The Hawkeyes were only 3-17 (17%) from three.
Filip Rebraca had his eighth double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds which is a team high.
There were 13 lead changes and six ties.
Iowa 93 Rutgers 82
The good news is the Hawkeyes snapped a two game losing streak.
The better news is Patrick McCaffery returned and his nine points were important in Iowa’s 13th win, 5-5 in the Big Ten.
You couldn’t have scripted it any better.
Patrick came off the bench with 13:55 left in the first half and the crowd gave him a standing ovation. They got a little louder when big brother Conner found Patrick open on the wing outside the 3-point line. Nothing but net, Patrick was back shooting 3-3 from distance and Iowa got another weapon back. Also how nice it was to see Conner have two of his six assists go to Patrick.
Four Hawks finished in double figures shooting 50% (12-24) from three and 85.3% from the free throw line.
Aaron Ulis continues to play with more confidence scoring 16 points on 5-9 from the floor, 2-4 from three and 4-5 from the free throw line.
If the Hawks could find some consistency through the rest of the season, they will be a tough matchup.
Iowa Wrestling
No.1 Penn State used a pin and tech fall to knock off No. 2 Iowa at Penn State last week.
I knew it would be a tough meet with the Nittany Lions, who won the crown last season and had three returning NCAA champs at 133, 174 and 184.
At 133 the Lions got a pin. At 174 top ranked Carter Starocci beat Nelson Brands 2-1 and top ranked Aaron Brooks had a tech fall at 184.
Spencer Lee got things started with a tech fall, Real Woods, Max Murin and Patrick Kennedy had decisions, but the Hawks 15 straight dual wins came to an end.
“We have to take our medicine with this loss,” said Tom Brands. “We took our medicine too much in some positions during the match. You can never take that medicine when the match is going and the clock is ticking.”
Penn State reminds me of the Dan Gable-led Iowa teams of the 1980’s and 90’s.
The Hawks dominated winning nine straight NCAA championships from 1978 to 1986.
That will be a tough record to break with the balance of the top wrestling schools, most of them in the Big Ten.
The record that won’t be broken?
Dan Gable coached Iowa for 21 years.
The Hawkeyes won 21 Big Ten Championships.

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Real Woods celebrates a 6-4 win over Nebraska’s Brock Hardy in the 141-pound bout at Carver-Hawkeye Arena Friday, Jan. 20.