Hawkeye Women Reach Elite 8

Iowa Basketball Playing for Final Four Berth Sunday

Iowa celebrates after beating Colorado in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA college basketball tournament on March 24, 2023 at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. (Saul Young/News Sentinel/USA TODAY NETWORK)

Caitlin Clark missed first-half shots and got into early foul trouble.

Then the Iowa All-American guard took over the game in the second half and got the Hawkeyes into the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight.

Clark scored 31 points, 18 in the second half, as Iowa, the No. 2 seed in Seattle Regional 4, defeated sixth seed Colorado 87-77 on Friday night.

Iowa (29-6) will play either Louisville or Ole Miss in Sunday’s regional final, with the winner going to the Final Four.

“Any time you get to play basketball for this long, it’s pretty special,” said center Monika Czinano. “And none of us want this to end. We’re like a family here. As long as we can be together, we’re going to try to be together.”

Clark made just 4-of-11 shots in the first half, and was on the bench with two fouls to start the second quarter.

But she responded in the second half, making 7-of-11 shots while adding five assists as the Hawkeyes pulled away after trailing 40-39 at halftime.

“My first half wasn’t my best half of basketball I’ve ever played,” Clark said. “I felt like I was playing a little frantic. I felt like I was rushed on offense.”

“Yeah, she's definitely up for (national) player of the year for a reason,” Colorado coach J.R. Payne said. “She's a great player. I don't know that there was anything in person that was different, because the film's pretty impressive. I thought she got a lot of great looks at the rim. I'm not sure if she often scores that much at the rim. But, yeah, she's great and she was great tonight.”

Clark led four Hawkeyes in double figures in scoring. Kate Martin had 16 points. Monika Czinano had 15, and McKenna Warnock had 12.

The Hawkeyes couldn’t get away from the Buffaloes (25-9) in the first half. Frida Formann had 19 points in the half, hitting 7-of-11 shots, including 4-of-7 in 3-pointers.

But Formann ran into her own foul trouble in the second half. She played just 10 ½ minutes, scoring just two points on 1-of-4 shooting.

“We really did a good job on Frida Formann (in the second half),” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “She was having a spectacular first half, and we held her to two points.”

“I had a lot of space in the first half, I felt like, and my teammates were just finding me,” Formann said. “And, I mean, when it's this stage you just … my job is to shoot the ball, so that's what I'm going to do. And then they adjusted defensively and were a little tighter. I had some foul trouble in the second half, but, yeah, I was proud of how I was and my team was playing in the first half.”

Iowa outscored Colorado 25-13 in the third quarter, holding the Buffaloes to just five field-goals in the quarter. The Hawkeyes shot 59.3 percent from the field, including 9-of-13 (69.2 percent) in the third quarter.

“It started on defense for us,” Clark said. “We got about eight stops in a row there. We were getting stops. And that’s what leads to really good offense for us.”

“The third quarter was a real big difference maker for us,” Bluder said. “We got our transition game going.”

“I think a lot of it was transition offense,” Payne said. “I think if we go back and watch it, they were hitting us downhill in transition and had a lot of really just clean easy looks there.”