There’s no question that Ava Heiden did her part on Saturday in No. 2 seed Iowa’s closer than expected 58-48 win over No. 15 seed Fairleigh Dickinson. Her career-high 29 points were at times literally the only offense her team was able to produce. Hannah Stuelke did her part as well, adding 13 points and 16 rebounds, and that was pretty much it for the Hawkeye offense.
That won’t fly on Monday if the Hawkeyes hope to advance to the Sweet 16, and it will start with guard play.
All of Iowa’s starting
guards, but particularly Taylor Stremlow and Chit Chat Wright, have had moments of sheer brilliance and sheer disappointment throughout the season when it comes to offensive outputs. Neither are ever a complete net-negative, but in a year when the rotation has only gotten smaller as the calendar has progressed, scoring contributions from your starting lineup become even more crucial than normal.
When the shots are falling for Iowa’s guards, it makes the team nearly impossible to stop.
Take a look at one of Iowa’s best games of the year, the 80-67 road win at Nebraska. Ava Heiden once again led all scorers with 27, but it was supplemented with double digit performances from Stremlow, Wright, and Journey Houston off the bench. Stremlow and Wright scored 17 and 14 points respectively in that game, shooting a combined 5-8 from deep.
Compare that to the first round of the NCAA Tournament, where Wright was the only Hawkeye to hit a shot from deep as the team was an abysmal 1-13 from 3-point range. The opposite becomes true, and it then requires someone like Stuelke or Heiden to have a herculean effort to keep the team in the game.
Any game where a team shoots that poorly from deep will end up being close. It seemed for the most part too that Iowa was getting good looks that just didn’t want to fall. It’s not like Kylie Feuerbach is ever expected to be a huge scoring threat for the team, but she’s usually good for at least 1 good shot per game…and that didn’t happen either.
Iowa’s best conference wins of the year by scoring margin, the aforementioned Nebraska game, the Ohio State win, the Michigan win, the scoring was still led by Heiden, but greatly aided by contributions up and down the roster.
That takes us to tomorrow’s matchup against the No. 10 seed Virginia Cavaliers. Yes, Virginia is playing its third game in five days, but they’re not an opponent for the Hawkeyes to overlook. The Cavaliers lead the country in blocked shots, which means that guard play is going to be even more critical than normal while Virginia try to hammer shots in the post.
All the hype since Saturday’s game has been around needing more from Wright and while I do think we need a little more scoring from the sophomore guard, getting something — anything — from at least one of the combo of Stremlow, Feuerbach, Addie Deal, or Houston will be paramount to success. Wright is usually on the court for the entirety of these games, and rarely turns the ball over to boot. Yes, she should shoot more (I think she gets in her own head about shot quality, which I respect), but more often that not, she’s impacting the game in multiple ways.
Feuerbach will have her hands full as well on the other side of the ball defending Virginia’s Kymora Johnson. The junior guard averages 19.2 points per game, and dropped 28 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists yesterday to advance her team past Georgia. Johnson can score, but also probably hasn’t played against a defender like Feuerbach.
That leaves Stremlow, Deal, and Houston to be an X-factor for Iowa. The nice thing is that in the vast majority of Iowa’s game’s this year, the young squad has found ways to win due to massive contributions from those three names. Add in the fact that this is a home game as well, and it’s not too far fetched to think that someone will be able to step up and gut Iowa to another win. Disregard what that might mean for a Sweet 16 matchup, but you play the games on the court for a reason.
This is an Iowa squad that has continually found ways to defy expectations and gut out wins throughout the entirety of the season. Even in the team’s brief 3-game losing streak, the coaching staff and players made adjustments and found renewed success.
Here’s to hoping that trend continues tomorrow in front of the home crowd for one last game. I still have not had my fill of watching Jan Jensen’s second Hawkeye team, and I don’t think said team has had their fill of playing — and winning — basketball games together.
This Hawkeye team, like every other team save for maybe UConn and UCLA, has flaws. But despite them, this is still a special squad that is more than capable of putting a bad game behind and advancing to another Sweet 16.
