It was a bold strategy to serve up bulletin board material as a No. 15 seed heading into Carver-Hawkeye Arena. That didn’t stop Southeastern Louisiana head coach Ayla Guzzardo from doing just that.
In an interview with WDSU-TV‘s Kendall Duncan, Guzzardo had pointed remarks about Iowa’s defense. Or, its perceived lack thereof.
“They’re not a big defensive team. We know that. They don’t really want to play defense as much as we love to play defense, so we’re a great defensive team, they’re a great offensive team. Something’s got to give,” Guzzardo said.
Junior guard Hailey Giaratano echoed some of that confidence.
“Yeah, you know, we’re bringing big things here to Hammond, America. That’s something we wanted to accomplish the whole time. We’re not scared of anybody. We know we that can fight with anybody. If anything, they should be scared. They’re a team that they haven’t seen a team like us before. We’re gritty, we fight,” Giaratano said.
Iowa caught wind of those pregame remarks. The Hawkeyes responded with a resounding, 95-43, NCAA Tournament win in which they limited the Lions to 11 second-half points. Southeastern Louisiana shot 25.4% from the field for the game and 18.2% from 3-point range.
Afterwards, Caitlin Clark shared her and Iowa’s response to the pregame comments.
“Yeah, I think any time you see something like that, but, at the same time, I would expect nothing less. I would totally expect my coach to want to fire me up to come in here and want to win. I don’t ever expect somebody just to lay down. I don’t care what your record is. I don’t care what conference you’re from.
You know, I thought it was awesome. I thought that competitive spirit out of their coach was, you know, I thought it was good. You want that passion. You want that fire. But, at the same time, we think we are a good defensive team, so we wanted to come out and prove that. Not just versus them, but in this whole tournament. Our offense gets a lot of credit, but, at the same time, we have worked really hard on our defense. We have a lot of different defenses we can throw at people. So, coming out here and playing good defense is important, because that only helps our offense, too,” Clark said.
Clark finished with 26 points on 9-of-14 shooting, including 3-of-6 from 3-point distance. She also dished 12 assists in the Hawkeyes’ tournament opener.
After nearly a two-week layoff since capturing the Big Ten Tournament title, Clark said Iowa handled the return to play well.
“Yeah, I think absolutely. There was always going to be some jitters to start no matter who you’re playing, so, just getting those out, playing through that. But now, you’ve got to go. Our full focus is on Georgia,” Clark said.
The Hawkeyes battle No. 10 seed Georgia on Sunday at 2 p.m. inside Carver with the game broadcast on ABC.
Here’s another look back at Iowa’s tournament-opening win over SELA through these terrific photos.