Iowa women’s basketball: Hawkeyes’ week goes from ‘weird’ to Wisconsin

IOWA CITY - There's been a scheduled game at Indiana, moved from last Sunday, to accommodate ...

An added game Tuesday against Maryland - and 111 points surrendered.

And that five-hour delay Thursday, which was followed by the Iowa Hawkeyes' best women's basketball effort of the season, an 89-67 rout of 12th-ranked Michigan.

Go figure.

'Obviously, (Thursday) was a very weird situation,” freshman Caitlin Clark said.

Weird situation. Weird week. But if there's one thing that can bring the Hawkeyes back to normalcy, it's a trip to Wisconsin.

Iowa (13-7, 9-7 Big Ten) faces the Badgers (5-16, 2-16) at 2 p.m. Sunday (FS1) at Kohl Center in Madison.

The Hawkeyes have defeated the Badgers 23 straight times in a streak that began in 2007. The most recent conquest was a not-so-easy 85-78 job Dec. 5 at Iowa City.

With the season-long hype that has followed Clark, the slam-dunk Big Ten freshman of the year and a legitimate player-of-the-year candidate, it's easy to lose track of what post Monika Czinano has done lately.

Or what she hasn't done. Miss.

A junior, Czinano has made 23 of 27 field-goal attempts in the last three games. That has helped her season rate to 69.2 percent, which leads the nation by more than 4 percent.

Czinano and freshman Sharon Goodman held their own against Michigan's Naz Hillmon on Thursday.

'(Hillmon) is really, really good,” Czinano said. 'I'm really proud of our team's mental toughness.”

Goodman said, 'We just wanted to play. Coming off that Maryland loss ... you never want to sit on a loss for long.”

Instead, the Hawkeyes roared back, with just one day of preparation. The reward was a six-spot boost in the NCAA NET Rankings, up to 26th. To stay at that level, a win Sunday is mandatory.

The presence and effectiveness of Czinano and Goodman is a necessity now, with the other post, Logan Cook, sidelined for a while with COVID-19.

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