Dixon dazzles in New Jersey

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - The drill doesn't have a name, but senior Melissa Dixon usually wins it. Six stations on the basketball floor, and don't move to the next until you miss consecutive shots.

'She's made something like 240 with 12 misses,'' Iowa women's basketball Coach Lisa Bluder said Sunday after her team shot past Rutgers, 79-72.

Added senior Sam Logic: 'We're like, ‘Hey, can we go home now?' ''

Dixon, second in the country in 3-point percentage, improved her accuracy by nailing 6 of 10 from behind the arc, one of a handful of players who accounted for the team making half their shots against the No. 17 team in the country.

On the road.

Against a team that came in with a shooting percentage defense of 33.5 percent.

This was a game billed as Rutgers' speed, defense and rebounding vs. Iowa's balance and accurate shooting. Rutgers came up with only three steals. Each team turned the ball over 17 times. Both had 18 rebounds at the half and Rutgers' final statistical advantage there proved irrelevant.

Legendary Iowa Coach C. Vivian Stringer, in her 20th year now at New Jersey's state university, put it thusly: 'Iowa is a well-balanced team. They're flat-out just a great team.''

The Hawkeyes are now 11-2 and have won five straight. They looked every part of the 20th-ranked team in the country with 19 assists on 29 baskets, plus an effective zone defense.

Dixon shot 7-for-13, Sam Logic 7-for-10, Bethany Doolittle 6-for-10, Ally Disterhoft 4-for-9, and Chase Coley came off the folding chairs to go 3-for-4 and grab four boards in six minutes.

Doolittle had a team-high eight rebounds, but it was Dixon's line of 21 points, five assists and zero turnovers that carried the day.

Had Rutgers not made an absurd 16 of 18 free throws, and had Iowa made even half its freebees (11-of-24), the Hawkeyes would have won in a walk.

In truth, they won at a jogger's pace.

Ahead 34-30 at the half, Iowa saw its lead disappear 2½ minutes into the second half as it fell behind 40-38. Including an early surge, Rutgers held a lead for all of three minutes.

Dixon took over from there, banging three straight bombs to put the Hawkeyes up for good. Up two with 12 minutes remaining, Iowa went on a 15-4 spurt. Dixon scored from the arc, then on a drive off a feed from Whitney Jennings.

After Rutgers cut its deficit to under double digits, Doolittle dumped one of two free throws and Dixon - the 'arc-angel'' - followed with another swish from the arc.

Iowa 69-56.

'This was an important win for us,'' Bluder said. 'It keeps us rolling in the Big Ten at 2-0, but more important it's a road win and they can be really hard to come by. So I'm very happy about that. So there are a lot of good things. I really credit this senior group; they're incredible leaders. They've been playing significant Big Ten basketball since they were freshmen on our campus.

'This is their time to shine and they're doing it.''