I really didn't know what to expect going into this game. Part of that came from watching Georgia take apart their opponent on Friday night. They shot a ton of free throws and grabbed a bunch of boards. In the NCAA tournament they've "owned" the Sisters breaking our heart three different times. Tonight though...I had a good feeling going in. Just call it that...a feeling.
The Hilton crowd was rocking by the time the game started. Every team that played us had to leave wishing they had a following as rabid and loud as our crowd is. Right out of the gate there were two things that were apparent. Coach Fen switched things up by going zone (that used to be the staple of ISU and now we rarely see it) and the defense ratcheted things up several notches just for Georgia. The other thing that happened was the shots were falling. The opening three seemed to spell bad things for Georgia as each time they got the ball they struggled to answer. Our girls were shifting so fast on defense that Georgia couldn't create openings and this resulted in bad shot selection. Bad shots equals misses and when they did...they rarely got a second chance like they had on Friday. Not when you have a rebounding group like ours on the court. Each unanswered basket made the crowd get louder and by the time the score reached double digits with no answer from Georgia the house was a 'rockin. By the time the first period was over Georgia looked like they were already punch drunk from too many haymakers. The score read ISU 23 to Georgia 7 and it really was that bad of a butt whooping.
The ISU scoring slowed down a bit in the second, but the defense didn't. We missed a few shots, made a few mistakes to turn the ball over and it just didn't matter. The defensive pressure kept making Georgia so uncomfortable that they couldn't establish any rhythm whatsoever. By the time the dust settled from the first half the ISU lead had slightly expanded to an eye opening 37-18. Now the question was...would we see another game like in the Big 12 tourney against WVU or would this be a complete game? It didn't take long to find out.
The third quarter was, in my opinion, the best that Georgia had to offer....if scoring 12 points and holding ISU to 12 points is good. From an ISU standpoint, Georgia elevated their intensity on defense and pressured us into some mistakes, but ISU made several mistakes on its own. It was a bit of a sloppy quarter with some players pushing things a bit too hard. A few bad decisions, but one things stayed true. Defense. There was zero let down that would allow Georgia to come storming back. My understanding is that the tv announcers kept talking like Georgia was making a move...but it never happened. The best they saw things was cutting the lead to 16 and then in the blink of an eye it was 23. This group of hard nosed women were not letting this one go.
The fourth quarter saw more of the same. Defense that forced Georgia turnovers. Defense that limited them to one shot. Defense that clearly left them frustrated and they started to show it by doing "stupid" things, i.e. foul. As each minute passed, you could feel the electricity in the air. The crowd could sense it. The team started to shift the offensive strategy with about 6 minutes to go. Sitting with a 23 point lead they started to work clock milking every valuable second away from Georgia. With a couple of minutes left Coach Fen started putting in the subs so the home crowd could recognize Lexi and Emily and finally Ashley. And the crowd gave them that home cooked applause. The house roared. Even with the subs in good things kept happening and finally the clock struck midnight (metaphorically) and with a 67-44 score the ladies had advanced to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 2010. The Georgia jinx was over.
Observations
POG - Has to be Lexi. Leading scorer with 20 points a block, steal and three boards...she was literally all over the floor tonight. She was scrapping for the ball. Her hands were tipping away passes. She had some breakaways. She was perfect at the line. She made four treys. 'Nuff said.
Free throws - we all know that Friday night was the worst exhibition of free throw shooting by a women's team in recent memory. There were still some struggles tonight, but there was massive improvement back to what we expect. The ladies hit 14 of 20 for 70%...still a long ways below normal. The good part...the misses were spread around so no one was particularly bad at all.
Rebounds - This Georgia team dominated their opponent on the boards Friday night. I mean really dominated. I was a bit worried about this. Well, tonight the Sisters took care of business outrebounding a bigger Georgia team by 7. Even better...they held UG to 11 offensive boards. This leads me to another very welcome comment...
Izzi - Wow...talk about being thrown into the fire. During the first half Jordao went to the bench not being able to catch her breath. So, Izzi was next up. With little playing time of late she stepped up and was simply amazing. In ten minutes of playing time she had 2 points and SEVEN boards. She was authoritative on the rebounds as well. No one was going to take them away. Talk about a confidence builder and a welcome sight! Even more fun the crowd loved it and whenever she left the court it was to rousing cheers.
The bigs - so...this was the Izzi/Mo night. Between them, they scored 12 points and pulled down 13 boards. Very nice. Even nicer was watching Izzi hold her own against Staiti, a sixth year senior. They both did a nice job of coming out and setting picks all night for the guards.
Ashley - Friday night...36 points. Tonight the points were spread out just like we want them. Ashley never had to make those one on four drives. She put in a nice 12 points, pulled down 10 boards, had 3 steals and 3 assists. This is the consummate team stat line.
Emily - wow...wasn't her perfect night. But she is still the floor general and by the end of the first half had more assists than all of Friday night. Even nicer, she broke the season assist record held by she who shall not be named. She was determined and did everything the team needed her to do to pull out this win. 15 points. 6 boards and NINE assists. Excellent stuff.
Aubrey - Filled in another ten minutes of respite for the other guards. Made solid decisions with the ball. Still didn't score a point, but she got her job done.
M&M - I had some people ask me what was going on with her. She's making some uncharacteristic mistakes. Her shooting is off. Tonight she only attempted one shot. Defense was solid. Something just seems to be going on. I'd sure like to see her regain her offensive presence.
Diew - another example of putting it all out there. She took a blow to the face in the second half after blocking a shot and left the game. She was definitely hurting. She started tonight and did a great job defensively with her reach and quickness. This was the first time I ever saw her lose her cool after a foul called against her, but Em calmed her down right away.
I love a comment from Coach Fen after the game. And I paraphrase - when our team is playing like this...if anyone wants to beat us they had better really bring it. He is so right. Defense always leads to positive things. When the ladies are dialed in like they were tonight...especially as dialed in as they were playing an unusual defensive set...look out.
What's next? Well all of you know by now that Creighton ended Iowa's season. I wasn't heartbroken about that as Iowa is already on our checklist of "we took care of that." Next game will be against a team that plays salty defense and has some quickness. Sounds like some parallels to Iowa State. They are not a tall team with three players at 6'1". They have three players (including today's hero and former Iowa player Lauren Jensen) who aren't afraid to put up the deep ball. Really...if you look at their stat lines for the season they look very similar to ours. We share some common opponents as well:
(ISU/Creighton)
Drake W 98-76 L 79-82
Northern Iowa W 70-69 W 79-72
South Dakota State W 75-56 W 67-55
Iowa W 77-70 W 64-62
Even those scores are very, very similar. This definitely will not be an easy out. Defense (very likely our traditional 1 on 1) will be key to slowing them down. The big key will be breaking down their defense and again playing team ball. Spreading the scoring around. Hitting the three. Drawing fouls. It's going to be a fun ride....
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