iowa 2018-19

Ignatius L Hoops

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https://www.hawkcentral.com/story/s...ate-martin-out-year-after-acl-tear/705224002/

Freshman guard Kate Martin out for season.


Ahead of what is expected to be the most promising season in recent memory, the Iowa women’s basketball team is already dealing with an injury setback.

Freshman guard Kate Martin will miss the 2018-19 season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament and lateral meniscus in her left knee, Iowa announced Friday. The injury occurred last weekend...

...A two-time all-state and all-metro honoree, Martin would’ve likely provided backcourt depth behind guards Mackenzie Meyer, Alexis Sevillian, Kathleen Doyle and Tania Davis.

But as the Hawkeyes learned last season following Davis’ own ACL tear in December, you can never have too many guards. Martin’s injury depletes that depth a bit more.
 

What? Hawkeye article says "you can never have too many guards". Hawkeye program has been hit with a lot of major injuries in recent years. Am I correct in thinking that they should be one of top three teams in BIG preseason polls?
 

https://hawkeyesports.com/news/2018...-wbb-to-host-summer-scrimmage-on-july-13.aspx

This is kinda cool.

The University of Iowa women's basketball team will host a Sneak Peak Summer Scrimmage on July 13 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The scrimmage is set for 6 p.m. (CT) in the practice gym. Admission is free.

Hawkeye fans can see the 2018-19 squad in action for the first time. Iowa returns nine letterwinners and welcomes four newcomers to its roster.
 


http://daily-iowan.com/2018/07/04/hawkeye-womens-basketball-eyes-offensive-diversity/

Bluder plans to get the guards going:


Down the stretch last season, Gustafson had an extremely impressive run, scoring 77 points in the Hawkeyes’ final two contests. The problem was Gustafson’s 77 points was 48 percent of the Hawkeyes points in the final two games.

Worse yet, the team (minus Gustafson) shot a woeful 33 percent from the floor during those two games.

Those aren’t numbers that Iowa wants to replicate, which is why the Hawkeyes want to get more production out of players not named Gustafson.

“We’re working on that this summer,” Bluder said. “We are implementing a second offense that’s more guard-oriented that really revolves around having one post on the floor instead of two posts on the floor.”

One player who could help pick up the slack next season could be Kathleen Doyle.

She finished last season scoring 11.1 points per game while dishing out 6.6 assists per game, which landed her a spot on the All-Big Ten second team.

“I think Kathleen is going to have another wonderful year,” Bluder said. “I definitely expect her to make that jump into her junior year. I think this offensive tweak we’re making this summer will really help her.”
 


https://www.hawkcentral.com/story/s...yes-inch-closer-anticipated-season/785421002/

Some notes from Iowa's summer open scrimmage (Chase Coley is the only significant departure from last season):


Iowa women’s basketball fans took advantage of a unique opportunity, one that provided an early glimpse ahead of what could be a special Hawkeye season.

Supporters piled into the Carver-Hawkeye Arena practice gym Friday evening as Lisa Bluder held a sneak-peek summer scrimmage. Score wasn’t kept, but nearly the entire Iowa roster was in action.



Helping provide frontcourt depth behind Stewart and Gustafson will be two freshmen.

Bluder said the staff is still finding the exact role for 6-foot-1 newcomer Logan Cook, whose length and versatility can cause opponents issues. Freshman Monika Czinano has a more defined role as a 6-foot-3 forward, and will have a chance to learn under one of the best posts in the country.

“I think that Monika has got a motor — not quite like Megan — but boy, she works really hard inside,” Bluder said. “Anybody who works that hard, they’re going to be good. It’s going to pay off.

“Logan, we’re still trying to figure out what position to put her in. Again, she works so hard in drills, and her length is so good. She is versatile — we just have to figure out how we’re going to use that versatility the best. That’s still kind of a work in progress.”

Then there’s 5-foot-10 guard Tomi Taiwo, who enters a crowded backcourt but could carve out a role as the season progresses.

“Obviously, you can see that Tomi can shoot threes, can get to the rim,” Bluder said. “She’s going to be a good player....


...The Hawkeyes biggest “new” asset, though, comes from within. The Hawkeyes had Davis for just 11 full games last season before she tore her ACL for the second time in as many seasons.

Iowa patched up its backcourt much better than expected, but Davis’ absence showed a handful of times down the stretch. The return of her veteran leadership could very well be the most important factor if Iowa makes a deep tournament run.

The Hawkeyes are still being cautious with Davis — she sat out the scrimmage and won’t participate in anything until practice begins October 1 — but the expectation is she’ll be ready to roll come the season opener.
 

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A rather unimpressive schedule for a team that is expected to be near the top of the BIG. Might hurt them when it's NCAA tourney seeding time.
 

https://hawkeyesports.com/news/2018...iowa-wbb-releases-nonconference-schedule.aspx

Iowa's non-conference schedule with last seasons NCAA final RPI:

321 North Carolina Central
205 @ North Dakota
174 Oral Roberts
135 Northern Iowa
123 Robert Morris
107 Iowa State
91 IUPUI
69 @ Drake
60 (N) West Virginia
58 @ Western Kentucky
9 (N) Florida State or 315 Eastern Kentucky

First time poster on this board. I am not a Minnesota alum or alum of any BiG school for that matter. I’m just a fan of women’s basketball in the Big Ten Conference. I relatively recently came across your forum and have to say it is one of the best if not the best of all the forums I’ve seen for women’s basketball. That being said, I was prompted to respond because of an error that I discovered in the non-conference schedule posted here for Iowa. I clicked on the link provided and noticed that Iowa has @Notre Dame on their schedule and upon further scrutiny, saw that @North Dakota was not. It is easy to see how that happened. Regardless, I wanted to point it out because it makes a significant difference with respect to the subsequent post by member tripledouble. On a separate note, I think the Gophers hired an excellent head coach in Whalen and could very possibly become a perennial power in the B1G for years to come.
 
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First time poster on this board. I am not a Minnesota alum or alum of any BiG school for that matter. I’m just a fan of women’s basketball in the Big Ten Conference. I relatively recently came across your forum and have to say it is one of the best if not the best of all the forums I’ve seen for women’s basketball. That being said, I was prompted to respond because of an error that I discovered in the non-conference schedule posted here for Iowa. I clicked on the link provided and noticed that Iowa has @Notre Dame on their schedule and upon further scrutiny, saw that @North Dakota was not. It is easy to see how that happened. Regardless, I wanted to point it out because it makes a significant difference with respect to the subsequent post by member tripledouble. On a separate note, I think the Gophers hired an excellent head coach in Whalen and could very possibly become a perennial power in the B1G for years to come.

Thanks for the correction. There's no excuse for confusing the Fighting Irish with the Fighting Hawks. And welcome to the board.
 

https://hawkeyesports.com/news/2018/10/31/womens-basketball-lisa-bluder-media-day-transcript.aspx

Lisa Bluder's presser:

Q. Do you have a tentative lineup set so far, or are you kind of keeping an open mind? Is it close?

LISA BLUDER:
Megan will be at the five, Hannah will be at the four, Makenzie Meyer will be at the three. You know, really, what we don't know right now for sure is about Tania. Kathleen's going to be in the starting lineup, so will it be Tania or will it be Lexi? We did scrimmage this weekend and did not play Tania, we just didn't think it was necessary at this point.

Right now I'm not even sure if we're going to scrimmage her in our exhibition against Dakota Wesleyan on Tuesday. So we'll wait and see.


Q. How limited is Tania in practice. You mentioned she wasn't quite a hundred percent?

LISA BLUDER
: She's doing almost everything. But, we're just not really kind of pushing the envelope on it. We just don't feel like there is a need to. So she hasn't been like going over five minutes for a scrimmage. We kind of back her off a little bit on some of the defensive things that we're doing. The thing with Tania being a senior, she doesn't maybe need quite as many reps as the freshmen and sophomores do, and she's such a knowledgeable player that missing those reps won't hurt her. I just want her to be very, very comfortable and confident before she takes the floor.


Q. You've used a lot of 3-point shooting and it's been a staple of your team. Is that even more valuable this year because you guys want to keep shooting from the perimeter so Megan's just not so boxed in all the time?

LISA BLUDER:
We have to. I think we have to be dangerous from outside otherwise it makes it so much harder on Megan, and it makes it hard to get her the ball. I think that we have to be an outside threat as well.


Q. Coach, the tough loss to Minnesota in the tournament, and then to Creighton in the NCAA Tournament, how did those serve maybe the rallying cry for your group this year?

LISA BLUDER:
When you come into this summer and you have to use all those type of things as motivation. Summer can be long. This year we expanded our hours that we're spending with our team from two to four hours. So we were in the gym with them a whole lot more than we have been in the previous years with that NCAA rule change.

I think they use it as great motivation. I don't think that they're dwelling on it. I don't think it kept them up at night after the first couple of weeks. But certainly they have something to prove, and they're handling it just like you'd want them to.
 

https://www.thegazette.com/subject/...sketball-injury-timeline-broken-hand-20181102

Hawkeyes Doyle sidelined for several weeks:

The Iowa Hawkeyes’ already-depleted backcourt got another jolt Friday morning.

Kathleen Doyle, a preseason all-Big Ten women’s basketball pick, suffered a third and fourth matacarpal fracture in her left (non-shooting) hand in practice. She is expected to miss 4-6 weeks.

That timetable leaves her out until early to mid-December.

...

The other primary point guard, senior Tania Davis is working back from her second ACL tear and is questionable for the Hawkeyes’ exhibition game Tuesday against Dakota Wesleyan. Freshman guard Kate Martin suffered an ACL tear last summer and will redshirt.

Until Davis returns, sophomore Alexis Sevillian will work the point with junior Makenzie Meyer at the shooting guard. Depth will come from junior Amanda Ollinger and freshman Tomi Taiwo.
 

On Friday, against #20 West Virginia, Iowa rallied from a 24 point first half deficit (29-48 half time deficit) to defeat the Mountaineers 84-81. WVA was 10-25 from behind the arc.

On Saturday, The Hawkeyes (4-1) could not duplicate that effort and fell to Florida State 67-71 in the Junkanoo Jam's championship game.

https://www.hawkcentral.com/story/s...inale-megan-gustafson-tania-davis/2103331002/

Tania Davis led the Hawkeyes (4-1) with 22 points, including 17 in the second half along with six assists. Megan Gustafson poured in 16 points on 8-of-8 shooting while grabbing eight rebounds. Hannah Stewart added 14 points and nine boards.
 



FSU hasn’t been particularly good this year, so I’d consider that a bad loss.
 

Iowa St @ Iowa 70-70 with 0:25 left
 

Iowa pulled it out, but -- as much as I hate to say anything nice about a Coach-for-Life Fennelly team, it looks like ISU did a decent job of containing Gustafson. Study that game tape, Gophers!
 

Iowa pulled it out, but -- as much as I hate to say anything nice about a Coach-for-Life Fennelly team, it looks like ISU did a decent job of containing Gustafson. Study that game tape, Gophers!

Doyle returned for the Hawkeyes and made a big difference in the Iowa attack.
 

IUPUI is hanging with Iowa late in the first half.
 

IUPUI is hanging with Iowa late in the first half.

33-31 IUPUI leads at the half. Iowa hit a buzzer beating three to close within two. The Jaguars are doing a good job frustrating Gustafson. Earlier in the season IUPUI lost in OT at Wisconsin 64-65.
 

Gustafson with 44 points and 14 boards in Iowa's win over state rival Drake, 91-82. Hawks still not playing much defense. Gunderson likely to add another BIG Player of the Week award to her resume. At this point, the conference should probably either name that award after her or name her the BIG Player of the Year before conference play even starts.
 





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