Women’s Big Ten Tournament: Iowa rolls past Illinois, 64-58, to advance to semifinals

The No. 2 seed Iowa Hawkeyes rolled past a clearly gassed No. 10 seed Illinois Fighting Illini 64-58 Friday night in Indianapolis to advance to the Big Ten Tournament semifinals tomorrow afternoon. It’s the program’s fourth semifinals appearance in the last five years.

Don’t let the final score deceive you – this was not a close game.

The Hawkeyes never trailed in the game, getting started with an early 7-0 run to establish the pace of the game. Illinois responded, cutting the Iowa lead down to 7-5, but in a sequence of events that was going to be indicative of the entire game, Iowa ripped off a quick run thanks to early buckets from Wright and Feuerbach, and continued its trend of stifling defense on the other end of the floor, which quickly created a 19-7 Hawkeye lead. That was pretty much all she wrote.

Ava Heiden led all scorers with an efficient 16 point, 4 rebound, 3 assist performance on 6-7 shots from the field. Hannah Stuelke, whose status for the game was up in the air earlier in the week after an elbow injury she sustained in the last matchup against Illinois, was Iowa’s second leading scorer with 13 points and 5 rebounds, while Chit-Chat Wright continued her return to form, adding in 12 points on 2-3 shots from deep. Taylor Stremlow rounded things out, with a stat line that does not indicate the impact she made on the game. The sophomore finished with 9 points, 6 assists and 4 rebounds, playing a crucial role in establishing Iowa’s insurmountable lead.

How did we get there?

Stuelke, despite the injury concern, scored Iowa’s first points as part of a 7-2 run to start the game. The Illini clawed back, cutting the lead to only two, but Iowa responded well, getting shots from deep and in the paint effectively, along with an extremely kind whistle from the officials.

Iowa built complete control early, and then a Taylor Stremlow layup with just over a minute left in the first quarter gave Iowa a 19-7 lead, forcing Illinois to call a timeout. It didn’t make much of a difference though, as the Hawkeyes finished the quarter with a 21-11 lead.

The second quarter quickly became the Stremshow. Stemlow, who has been on an absolute tear since being inserted into the starting lineup, scored Iowa’s first 5 points of the quarter, thanks to a shot from deep and an and-1 opportunity she couldn’t convert. Despite their relative youth, the Hawkeyes looked like a veteran team in the second quarter, particularly in a play where Deal found a cutting Stremlow at the top of the key, who found Stuelke beneath the basket for a beautiful assisted layup to go up 28-16.

On the other end of the court, nothing could go right for Illinois. Even when Illini broke Iowa’s defense and had a wide open basket, they couldn’t make easy layups. Missed easy baskets combined with another strong defensive performance from Iowa, highlighted with a nasty blocked shot from Deal, and red-hot shooting from Iowa allowed the lead to keep growing, leading in field goal percentage 52% to 32% on 14-27 total shots, to the Illini’s 10-31. A huge part of that was due to freshman Journey Houston, the only bench player to score for the Hawkeyes. While she only netted 4 points, her 12(!) rebounds were crucial in Iowa’s fight to prevent second-chance shots for Illinois, as her team went into half up 37-23,

Iowa kept their foot on the gas in the second half. A Kylie Feuerbach layup, 2 of her 10 points on the night, got the scoring going and the Hawkeyes continued to roll. They led by as many as 22 in the game, led in the 3rd quarter by Stuelke and Heiden’s performances in the post.

Jensen kept the starters in until late in the 4th quarter, putting her bench in against the Illinois starters. Iowa’s bench struggled, allowing Illinois to rip off a 15-0 run to cut their double digit lead down to 64-55 with 32 seconds to play, but the damage had been done, and Iowa’s bench got valuable minutes while the starters got valuable rest for tomorrow.

The Hawkeyes will live to see another game in the Big Ten tournament, facing the winner of tonight’s nightcap matchup between Michigan and Oregon.

Final minutes aside, this is the kind of basketball you want to see your team playing in March. Let’s hope it continues this weekend and into the NCAA Tournament. See you tomorrow!

GO HAWKS!