It wasn’t supposed to end this way. Not with that type of crowd inside of Carver-Hawkeye Arena and not with this talented Iowa team. Tenth-seeded Creighton (22-9) made sure that it did, though.
In front of a raucous Hawkeye crowd, Creighton never blinked. It only added to the sting that the game-winning, 3-point shot was delivered by Iowa transfer and now Creighton sophomore guard Lauren Jensen with 15 seconds remaining. Playing against her former team, Jensen netted 8-of-15 field goal attempts and finished with a team-high 19 points to lead the Bluejays.
“Honestly, I was just super excited. I honestly didn’t know if it was going to go in. It kind of rattled off the back rim there. It wasn’t super clean, but I’m just glad it fell,” Jensen said.
Jensen leaned on her familiarity with Iowa to overcome what was a third-consecutive sell out crowd for the Hawkeyes.
“Obviously I’m pretty familiar with the arena because I played here all of last year, but I felt like that definitely helped. But on the flip side, there’s also some nerves with that because I’m wearing a different color this year, but I feel like it did help,” Jensen said.
Iowa head women’s basketball coach Lisa Bluder tipped the cap to her former player’s performance and thanked Hawkeye fans for the incredible environment they created.
“Obviously, just want to congratulate Creighton. A very well-played game, executed really well, defended really well. That’s a hard matchup for us. Five guards is a hard matchup. We knew that. But they did a great job, and Lauren Jensen was here last year, obviously that’s an incredible storyline. She goes over there and she comes back and beats us on our home court, and I want to congratulate her because she’s a great kid. She is a really, really good kid. I’m happy for her. I wish it wasn’t in this situation, but I am happy for her that she’s found a really good home and is really having a lot of success.
“Our crowd today was amazing again. I think we broke the NCAA record for first and second rounds of attendance, and I apologize to our fans that they couldn’t celebrate a victory with us today. They have been amazing all year, but boy, these last three games they’ve been incredible. So I want to thank them,” Bluder said.
Creighton won the rebounding battle over Iowa (24-8) in convincing fashion. The Bluejays out rebounded the Hawkeyes, 52-37. After Creighton jumped out in front 23-17 at the end of the first quarter, it felt like Iowa was battling uphill the rest of the afternoon.
In the second quarter, Iowa star sophomore guard and Big Ten Player of the Year Caitlin Clark knocked down her second 3-pointer of the day to bring the Hawkeyes back within 28-23. Creighton responded with a 10-3 run to grab the Bluejays’ biggest lead of 12 points at 38-26. During that 10-3 run by Creighton, Clark connected on what would be her final made 3-pointer of the season at the 3:54 mark of the second quarter.
Iowa closed the first half on a 6-0 run of their own to close the deficit to 38-32 at halftime. Early in the fourth quarter, it looked as if Iowa might finally be poised to take command and pull away from Creighton. Iowa junior guard Gabbie Marshall drilled back-to-back 3-pointers to put Iowa in front 56-54 with 6:53 remaining. That was the Hawkeyes’ first lead in the contest since Clark’s jumper fell to put Iowa in front 15-14 with 5:11 left in the first quarter.
In the final 2:48, though, it was Jensen that hit a jumper to pull Creighton back within two, drove inside for a game-tying layup and then, of course, hit the game-winning 3-pointer.
Iowa senior forward Monika Czinano was fantastic all afternoon long and finished with 27 points on 12-for-20 field goal shooting. In fact, she was a perfect 6-for-6 on her first six attempts from the field. With that in mind, it made sense that the play on Iowa’s final possession was set up for Czinano. She got a post-up touch inside off the inbounds pass, turned and left what would have been the game-tying shot for Iowa short. The Hawkeyes had a pair of put-back opportunities off Czinano’s miss, but those didn’t find the mark either.
“Yeah, I think I had a hook shot. I’ve shot a million hook shots in my life and that one happened to not go in. I think we’ve run that play a lot. We needed to run that play, and it was just unfortunate that it didn’t go in,” Czinano said.
It’s a disappointing end to a season that saw Iowa share the Big Ten regular season crown, win a Big Ten Tournament championship, earn a No. 2 seed in the Greensboro region, but fail to reach the tournament’s second weekend. Clark, a national player of the year candidate, wasn’t going to focus on all of the negatives.
“I thought we battled and battled and battled. Obviously didn’t perform the way we needed to to win in the fashion that we wanted, and I think we still had a lot of opportunities to win the game. But overall they executed down the stretch and we didn’t, and there’s a lot of little things that you can go back and pick out from a one-possession game. And I think it’s overall just going to be a lot of fuel to the fire next year. I think that’s really all you can use it as. Obviously we’re frustrated, we’re disappointed, we’re sad, but we have our core coming back, and I think that’s something bright to look forward to, as well,” Clark said.
Iowa does bring plenty of firepower back and it’s headlined by Clark. While the season ends in frustrating fashion, Iowa can take solace in the type of team it will field in the 2022-23 season.
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