Feb. 26, 2012
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By ADAM MEIER
IOWA CITY, Iowa — University of Iowa women’s basketball players Samantha Logic and Melissa Dixon have three seasons remaining in the black and gold uniforms, but the way the two freshmen played in Sunday’s regular-season finale against Michigan, you would think it was their final home game.
Logic recorded a triple-double with 13 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists and Dixon scored a career-high 22 points on six 3-pointers in a 79-71 win over Michigan on Mediacom Court inside Carver Hawkeye Arena.
“People don’t understand how hard it is to get a triple-double,” UI head coach Lisa Bluder said. “You think of the tradition of our program and the great players that we have had go through our program, and to have her (Logic) be only the fourth person that’s ever achieved that, it is a difficult feat. The points, you kind of expect, but to get the assists and the rebounds is really, really difficult.”
Kachine Alexander’s two triple-doubles in 2009 and Cara Consuegra’s in 2000 are the only other triple-doubles in school history.
The eighth-straight win for the Hawkeyes improves their record to 19-10 overall, 11-5 in the Big Ten Conference and guarantees the third seed in next week’s Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis.
“It’s been incredible,” Dixon said of the eight-game winning streak. “We’ve all believed in each other the entire time. To continue this for our seniors has been huge. They’ve been great role models and leaders all year. I’m just glad we could go out like this for our seniors.”
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“It’s been fun,” Bluder added. “I think we have ridden the momentum. They have come to practice focused and want to keep it going. We had a pretty tough January schedule. At the end of January our coaches are thinking, `Hey, we can do this. We can make the run.’ You don’t want to tell anybody, because they are going to laugh at you at that point. But I think this team always believed it.”
For five seniors, Sunday’s game was their final game in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Megan Considine, Hannah Draxten, Kalli Hansen, Kelly Krei and Kamille Wahlin were each honored after the game for their time with the Iowa program.
Wahlin scored 19 points while dishing out five assists and grabbing five rebounds. Krei tallied five points, seven rebounds and three assists. Hansen made her only shot attempt of the game — a 3-pointer that gave Logic her 10th assist for the triple-double.
“The assists are all on my teammates,” Logic said. “If they don’t make the shot, I don’t get one (assist) so that’s all them. I just get the ball to the open players by making good passes.”
The Wolverines began the game scorching from the field, making five of their first six field goals and building a 14-8 lead after a Courtney Boylan 3-pointer with 15:27 left in the half.
Iowa continued to trail midway through the first half, but Logic got the Hawkeyes going with a tough jump shot in the lane that cut the deficit to 26-22 with 8:11 to play in the period. Logic’s basket opened the floodgates for the Hawkeye shooters. Krei followed with a 3-pointer that made it a one-point deficit, and Wahlin followed shortly after with a 3-pointer that gave Iowa a 28-26 lead.
“We knew that Michigan was going to come here and compete with us and give us a great game,” Wahlin said. “They’re just the type of team that’s going to fight, so it was really important for us to set the tone.”
The Hawkeyes continued their offensive onslaught when Wahlin knocked down another 3-pointer and Dixon hit one on Iowa’s very next possession to make Iowa’s lead 34-32 with 4:24 remaining in the period. Later, Dixon hit her fourth 3-pointer of the half with 2:19 left to increase the Hawkeyes’ lead to seven points.
“In transition we just had a lot of open shots,” Dixon said. “We were moving the ball around really well so that helped all of us get a lot of open shots.”
Morgan Johnson added two baskets with under a minute left in the period, including a put-back at the buzzer that gave the Hawkeyes a 45-34 lead heading into the locker room.
Johnson finished the game with 15 points and six rebounds.
“They [Michigan] were getting too many open shots in the first half,” Bluder said. “I think we just intensified the defense a lot after the first ten minutes (of the half).”
By the 10:35 mark in the second half, Michigan had closed to within six points. That’s when Dixon decided that enough was enough. The freshman knocked down two 3-pointers from the corner; the second of which extended the Hawkeyes’ lead to 65-55 with 7:42 left to play. Shortly after, Hansen drilled a 3-pointer that gave Logic a triple-double and put the Hawkeyes up by 13 points with 5:20 remaining.
The Wolverines climbed back to within single-digits with under three minutes left, but Wahlin promptly made back-to-back runners in the lane that extended the lead back to 13 and put the game out of reach.
Iowa shot 30-of-64 (46.9 percent) from the field, including 12-of-33 (36.4 percent) from 3-point range.
The Hawkeyes play the winner of Northwestern-Nebraska on Friday, March 2, in the Big Ten Tournament.