Iowa women respond to Lisa Bluder's message, roll Kent State

IOWA CITY — Lisa Bluder takes a measured approach to letting her team have it during timeouts.

Early in Tuesday night's game against Kent State, though, the Iowa women's basketball head coach did just that.

Her Hawkeyes had started in a 9-0 hole, while allowing five offensive rebounds in the first six minutes of the game. She called a timeout after a Golden Flashes 3-pointer and emphatically asked for five subs. During the full timeout, she let her team have it.

Whatever she said — and however loud she said it — the message stuck. Some teams can handle it; some can't, she said. The Hawkeyes went on a 38-4 run over a 12:52 span of the first half, allowed just eight points each in the second and fourth quarters and won, 83-48.

'I just think they needed to be woken up a little bit,' Bluder said. 'You've got to judge your team. Sometimes some teams can take it, some teams can't. I thought at that point we deserved it, and I think they took it and they took it the right way, and that's really good to see because, again, some teams you get on them like that and they can really tank on you. But I thought they did a good job.'

It was those offensive rebounds and Iowa's defensive effort overall that had Bluder so upset at her team.

Kent State started the game 4 of 5 from the field and had those aforementioned offensive rebounds while Iowa started 1 of 6 from the field. Bluder's biggest point to her team — in addition to the Hawkeyes being a touch careless with the ball — during that timeout was on the defensive end. She liked their early offensive flow, but when shots aren't falling, she said, teams have to make up for that on the other end.

'Our defensive intensity, getting out to a 9-0 deficit to begin the game, valuing the ball; too many turnovers in the first half (was the problem),' Bluder said. 'I thought our shots were decent. And sometimes you're not going to score, but you've got to defend if you're not going to score, and you've got to value the ball better.'

Mission accomplished on those fronts.

Iowa allowed just 0.615 points per possession, 10 points in the paint, held Kent State to 24.7 percent shooting and had just two turnovers in the second half.

Things shifted thanks to 20 points and seven rebounds from Megan Gustafson, 18 points and six rebounds from Ally Disterhoft and 12 points on 4 of 7 shooting from 3-point range from Makenzie Meyer. Gustafson said after the game the team responded well to that early timeout because, 'Coach is here to get us pumped up.'

Responding well was an important thing for Bluder to see out of her team before opening with Illinois in Big Ten play.

'I feel like we're still a work in progress,' Bluder said. 'As you can see, sometimes we look really good and sometimes we don't. So that's going to happen when you have a young team, and you've just got to be able to live through some of those mistakes with them.

'But (Big Ten play) is right around the corner now, so we've got to be ready.'

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