Not a Good Night at Mackey Arena

Feb. 3, 2011

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The University of Iowa women’s basketball team couldn’t solve the Mackey Arena puzzle, dropping a 60-41 road contest at Purdue on Thursday night.

“I thought they (Purdue) played extremely well,” said UI head coach Lisa Bluder. “They came out with a great intensity, confidence and focus like good teams do. They played like the much better team than we did today. It was not a good performance by us, but I think Purdue had a lot to do with it.”

The Hawkeyes shot a season-low 21.8 percent (12-55) from the floor and 11.8 percent (2-17) from 3-point land to fall for the 11th straight time at the venue. Senior Kachine Alexander was the lone Iowa player in double digits, finishing with 11 points and a team-best eight rebounds.

“It’s very unusual for us to not have anybody kind of be a spark on our team and be able to get rolling offensively, but again give credit to Purdue on that,” said Bluder.

Iowa jumped out to a 7-6 lead early in the contest, courtesy of an Alexander 3-pointer at the 15:22 mark. From there, the Hawkeyes went 10 minutes without a field goal, missing 10 straight attempts, as Purdue grabbed a 23-11 advantage.

Freshman Jade Rogers ended the drought with a jumper at the 5:37 mark, but Iowa managed just four points for the remainder of the half, which allowed the Boilermakers to take a 30-17 advantage into the break.

Things didn’t get any better for the Iowa offense in the second half, as the squad made just three field goals over the first eight minutes. During the stretch, Purdue used a 14-6 run to push its lead to 44-23 with 11:55 remaining.

The Boilermakers stretched their advantage to as many as 22 (53-31) before running out 19 point winners.

The Hawkeyes will look to put this loss in the rear view mirror, as they prepare for Sunday’s game against conference co-leader Penn State.

“You can’t dwell on one game, it’s over, you have to move on,” said Bluder. “There are six games left in this conference season. Even with this loss we’re still right in the thick of it.”