Forget, for a moment, that Iowa’s women’s basketball team lost to Purdue on Saturday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, and just look back on the “Megan Show.”
It’s hard to come up with words to describe Iowa center Megan Gustafson and what she is accomplishing in her junior season.
You can make the case for her to be Big Ten player of the year. You can make the case for her to be the national player of the year. You can make the case that she may be the most dominant player to ever play for the Hawkeyes.
She had 37 points on 17-of-23 shooting in the 76-70 loss to the Boilermakers. She added 14 rebounds — her Division I-leading 17th double-double in 18 games this season.
Gustafson has 423 points (23.5 per game) and 228 rebounds (12.7 per game) this season. She has climbed from 20th to ninth all-time in rebounds (796) on the school’s career list, and has gone from 35th to 16th in career points (1,403). At this rate, she’ll become Iowa’s all-time leading scorer (Ally Disterhoft, 2,102) and the all-time leading rebounder (Cindy Haugejorde, 1067).
Gustafson is second in the nation in field-goal percentage (.693), fourth in points per game and fifth in rebounding. And don’t bother fouling her — she’s an 84 percent free-throw shooter.
Every game is a constant double-team, yet Gustafson finds a way to score. Purdue tried alternating a combination of 6-foot-1 starting forward Ae’Rianna Harris, 6-0 freshman guard Tamara Farquhar and 6-6 reserve center Nora Kiesler, and it didn’t work. Kiesler made an impact on the offensive end by scoring seven points, but in a five-second stretch of the third quarter was called for three fouls against Gustafson.
But Iowa coach Bluder knows that for the Hawkeyes (15-3 overall, 3-2 Big Ten) to be successful and have a chance at a top-16 seed to play at home in the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, there has to be more to this team than Gustafson.
Usually, there is, but there wasn’t on Saturday. Chase Coley scored 10 points, but she was the only Hawkeye in double figures. Alexis Sevillian (11.4 ppg.) and Kathleen Doyle (10.3 ppg.) combined for just 14 points on 5-of-28 shooting.
Carly Mohns, making her first start at the small forward spot, made her only shot of the game and finished with two points. Reserve Amanda Ollinger also made her only shot of the game, a 3-pointer, and finished with three points. Hannah Stewart, who has played well in the most minutes of her career, had just four points in 14 minutes.
Gustafson had 15 of her points in the fourth quarter alone as the Hawkeyes tried to rally.
“You know, Megan played great,” Bluder said. “But we need to get more people involved than Megan in our offense. It can’t be just a Megan show. And to me, it looked like we’re waiting around and letting her do the work for us instead of … I felt like Chase could have taken more shots, I felt Hannah could have taken more shots. They’re shooting the ball well, and we need them shooting the ball well. We need more out of the ‘3’ position. We got two baskets out of the ‘3’ position with Carly and Amanda.
“It makes it really hard when nobody is hitting from the outside and you can’t open things up for Megan. So that was a tough scenario.”
It played into Purdue’s game plan.
“That’s what we were trying to do, but (Gustafson) scored 37, so obviously we didn’t do well on her,” Purdue coach Sharon Versyp said. “We were trying to limit her touches. But we were hoping they didn’t knock down outside shots, and that pretty much played into our hands.”
The hope for Bluder is that Saturday was the exception rather than rule. The Hawkeyes fell from 16th to 23rd in the NCAA’s RPI after the loss to the Boilermakers, but they can rise again with road wins this week at Nebraska and Minnesota.
The Hawkeyes have gotten this far with a complementary offense to Gustafson, and there’s help on the way. Guard Makenzie Meyer, who averages 11.3 points and is second on the team with 26 3-pointers this season, should be back soon after breaking her hand in late December. And Sevillian and Doyle are capable scorers who are still growing with experience.
This is a good team. But it also has one of the nation’s best players. And the Hawkeyes, with their resumé, should be playing in the NCAA tournament in March.
That’s just more time to enjoy the “Megan Show,” a run that’s going to go on for a while.
TAKEAWAYS FOR THE WEEK
• Western Illinois guard Emily Clemens rebounded from one game of struggles with one of her best games of the season on Saturday.
Clemens had 29 points in the 90-51 win at Omaha, a week after scoring a season-low seven points in a home win over Oral Roberts.
Clemens made 9-of-16 shots, including five 3-pointers.
Clemens is fourth nationally with 142 assists, and ranks fourth in assists per game at 7.9.
• Switching to men’s basketball, the conference nightmare ended for Iowa, Iowa State and Northern Iowa in the span of three days. The Hawkeyes, Cyclones and Panthers all won for the first time in league play.
Let’s see what this week brings. Iowa is at Rutgers on Wednesday, then plays a top-10 Purdue team at home on Saturday. Iowa State plays at nationally-ranked TCU on Wednesday then plays host to a top-10 Texas Tech team on Saturday. UNI plays host to conference leader Drake on Tuesday, then plays at second-place Loyola on Saturday.
• If you had doubts about the direction of Iowa's season, consider Thursday's 104-97 win over Illinois.
The Hawkeyes were down 20 points in the first half, came back to lead, and then survived Trent Frazier's buzzer-beating 3-pointer at the end of regulation to come up with the win.
This was a game that could have easily gotten away and kept the Hawkeyes reeling. Any question about this team's effort should have been dispelled by the comeback and the surge in overtime.
THE WISE AP BALLOT
Eleven of last week's Top 25 teams lost this week, so it was more carnage.
Stock rising: Oklahoma went from No. 10 on my ballot last week to No. 3 with wins over Texas Tech and TCU.
Stock falling: West Virginia went from No. 2 to No. 7 on my ballot after the loss to Texas Tech, but you could put the Mountaineers anywhere in the 4-7 range and can make a good argument for it.
Say hello: Ohio State (No. 23) and Michigan (No. 24) are on my ballot for the first time.
Say goodbye: Miami is out after losing to Clemson. Florida State is out after the loss to Louisville.
1. Villanova
2. Virginia
3. Oklahoma
4. Wichita State
5. Duke
6. Texas Tech
7. West Virginia
8. Purdue
9. Kansas
10. Michigan State
11. Arizona State
12. Xavier
13. Cincinnati
14. Gonzaga
15. North Carolina
16. Tennessee
17. Arizona
18. Kentucky
19. Auburn
20. Clemson
21. TCU
22. Seton Hall
23. Ohio State
24. Michigan
25. Creighton