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Women’s Basketball Defeats the UNI Panthers

The Hawkeyes matched up today against the University of Northern Iowa Panthers and came out with a 68-46 victory. This was the women’s first game back at home after a series of games in Florida in which they only saw one win against West Virginia. The road games in Florida were the first losses of the season for the women of Hawkeye basketball but they came out strong tonight and, hopefully, are back on track.

Although the Panthers opened the game with a basket, the Hawkeyes were able to get the ball moving and began their lead early on. For the rest of the game, the Hawkeyes held the lead but the Panthers were never trailing too far behind. At the half the score was 30-24. There was a great amount of rebounding from RS Junior guard Theairra Taylor, which we have seen all season long. Another trend in this game was shots from down low by Morgan Johnson. All season she has been the go to girl for that quick basket down by the post. As the tallest player on the team, she fulfills her role well and definitely comes through for the team.

Printy had nine points against the Panthers in Saturday’s match-up. (Press-Citizen/ Benjamin Roberts)

The majority of the shots from the Hawkeyes tonight were from inside the paint, however there were several threes from amazing shooter Jaime Printy. Melissa Dixon also did a good job of delivering 3-pointers.

There is the aspect of variety on this Hawkeye team that is working to their advantage. There are players who are able to finagle their way in to the basket and go up strong, drawing the foul and there are also the players who can shoot long range.

The one thing that may hurt the Hawkeyes as they move on to tougher games could be their coordination offensively. There were times in this game where they looked just a tad sloppy with passes and just couldn’t get into the rhythm of some plays. Also there was an element of predictability with their plays. To their advantage, the Panthers couldn’t catch on quick enough but for more developed teams, that would be something to watch out for. Countless times, there was the inside pass made to Morgan Johnson enabling her to just hop up and drop the ball in over the head of her defender.

The season thus far has treated the women fairly well, but if they want to have a season of success, they will need to make sure they take care of the ball better and learn proper execution of all their plays.


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