Lisa Bluder is starting to think that maybe a few more timeouts might be a good idea.
Bluder isn’t one to burn through her allotment of timeouts with this version of Iowa’s women’s basketball team, but with her team down four points and all out of sorts with less than two minutes left in Saturday’s game against Nebraska, Bluder felt the need to give her team a timeout and provide some incentive.
All the No. 5 Hawkeyes did was score the last nine points of the half, take a lead into halftime, and then dominate the Huskers in the second half of the 92-73 win.
“I think she fired us up,” said guard Caitlin Clark, who had 38 points and 10 rebounds. “That’s what I love about her. She’s going to coach us, and none of us want to let her down. We want to make her proud. We knew ourselves that we weren’t playing to the standard of Iowa basketball.”
“I think the team needed just kind of a gut check,” Bluder said. “Maybe I need to call more timeouts. But I really think it was more of a gut check than anything else.”