Dec. 5, 2004
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IOWA CITY — After a slightly sloppy first half of play that saw the home team play perhaps a little too generous a host, Coach Lisa Bluder’s Iowa Hawkeyes got serious about protecting their home court and their unblemished record, and ran away from the Northern Iowa Panthers Sunday afternoon en route to a 77-50 victory at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The win pushed the record for Bluder’s Bunch to a perfect 6-0 — the best start for the Iowa Hawkeyes since the 1995-96 season when the UI won its first seven games. Iowa, a perfect 4-0 at home in 2004-05, will look to match that start Wednesday when it entertains Marquette at 7 p.m. in the Arena.
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Iowa entertains Marquette Wednesday in the Arena. Game time is set for 7 p.m.
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“It feels great to be 6-0. We’re very excited with how our team is playing. We shot the ball very well in this game because we executed on the offensive end and we got high percentage shot,” said Bluder.
The Hawkeyes turned a 40-28 halftime lead into a 21-point margin by outscoring Northern Iowa 14-5 during the first 10 minutes of the second stanza. Iowa never led by less than 20 during the last 10 minutes of the second half. That was in sharp contrast to the first half when Iowa built a double-digit lead only to see UNI trim it to six, 27-21, when Tara King dropped a jumper with 6:10 to play.
Iowa was led in scoring by point guard Crystal Smith who scored a game-high 21 points. Stacy Schlapkohl added 18 and Jamie Cavey 14. Hawkeye guard Abby Emmert paced Iowa’s rebounding attack with eight – all coming on the defensive end of the floor.
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“I’m most happy with our defense. We held them to 22 points in the second half. There was a seven minute stretch where they didn’t score.”
UI Coach Lisa Bluder
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Defense again proved big for the Hawkeyes. In addition to outrebounding their visitors by nine, Iowa limited the Panthers to just 38 percent shooting from the field and forced 21 turnovers.
“I’m most happy with our defense. We held them to 22 points in the second half. There was a seven minute stretch where they didn’t score,” said Bluder.
Iowa also again enjoyed big-time contributions from its bench, getting 31 points from its non-starters.
Emily Berry paced Northern Iowa with 18 points. However, she scored 12 of those points during the first half and didn’t get her first points of the second stanza until the 7:05 mark when she sank the second of a pair of free throw attempts.