The Iowa women’s basketball team took on the Northwestern Wildcats Sunday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. It was Northwestern’s third road game in a row,and the Wildcats were coming off a loss to Michigan State. Iowa faced a similar misfortune in Thursday’s game at Illinois, and the Hawkeyes dropped their second straight game, falling 67-65 to the Wildcats.
Northwestern opened the game with a 3-pointer, but struggled to find shooting accuracy and offensive motion throughout the first half. Melissa Dixon had an incredible game, ending with 21 points overall, 15 of which came from three point shots.
Unfortunately, it was the second half that squandered Iowa’s hopes of wining the game. Northwestern outscored them by thirteen points, many of which came from senior forward Kendall Hackney. Numerous times Hackney was wide open under the basket for easy layups. Not surprisingly, the Wildcats’ layup game is what put them ahead of the Hawkeyes in the final minute of the game when Karly Roser scored at the buzzer to give Northwestern the win.
Going into the second half, the Hawkeyes were up by eleven points and were utilizing holes in the Wildcats defense to push the lead. Some foul trouble and missed free throws set the Hawkeyes back in the second half. The pumped up Wildcat offense seemed too much for them to handle.
The Hawkeyes are still 6-0 against ranked teams, and now 16-7 on the season.
