Hawkeyes earn No. 2 seed, draw Illinois State in 1st round of NCAA women’s basketball tournament

IOWA CITY — Feel free to look ahead.

A Cy-Hawk showdown in the Sweet 16 at Greensboro? Could happen.

Should happen.

“They have tough games before that, and so do we,” Iowa’s Caitlin Clark said Sunday of a potential third-round NCAA women’s basketball tournament encounter with Iowa State.

“We’ve got to win six games if we want to win it all.”

The first one is Friday.

Iowa (23-7) earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament; the brackets were revealed Sunday night.

Champions of the Big Ten (both regular-season and tournament), the Hawkeyes face 15-seed Illinois State (19-13 and the Missouri Valley Conference tournament champ) in a first-round game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

A tipoff time has not been determined.

“I love our region, and I love the matchups we got,” senior post Monika Czinano said.

Colorado (22-8) and Creighton (20-9) are seeded seventh and 10th, and play in the Friday’s other first-round game at Carver.

Winners play in the second round Sunday.

If the Hawkeyes advance to the regionals at Greensboro, N.C., it sets up a potential Sweet 16 matchup with 3-seed Iowa State (26-6).

ISU hosts a subregion Friday, facing Texas-Arlington in the first round. Dayton and DePaul play in a First Four game, with the winner facing Georgia.

“There’s going to be a lot of talk about an Iowa-Iowa State matchup, but we have to beat good teams to get there,” Czinano said.

Iowa State defeated Iowa, 77-70, Dec. 8 in Ames.

The Hawkeyes are in the NCAA Tournament for the 28th time, the 16th under Coach Lisa Bluder.

They enter with a full head of steam, winning seven consecutive games, including a showdown with Michigan in the Big Ten regular-season finale and three straight in the Big Ten tournament at Indianapolis.

Led by Megan Gustafson, the Hawkeyes advanced to the Elite Eight in 2019 ... at Greensboro. Czinano, Tomi Taiwo and Logan Cook were on that team. Kate Martin was a redshirt freshman.

“The seniors were talking about that,” Martin said. “It’s a little deja vu-ish.

“I thought that team was the best team I would ever be a part of, that there was no way I could ever be a part of another team like that.”

Tickets went on sale online Sunday night, and the ticket office opens Monday at 9 a.m. for in-person sales.

Regionals are March 25-28; the Final Four is April 1-3 at Target Center in Minneapolis.

Illinois State is in the field for the first time since 2008. The Redbirds qualified by rallying past Northern Iowa, 50-48, for the MVC tournament title Sunday at Moline, Ill.

“I don’t know much about them,” Bluder said. “We have practice at 1 p.m. (Monday), and we’ll have a scout prepared.”

Three Iowans are on the Illinois State roster — Mary Crompton (Iowa City Regina), Lexy Koudelka (Nevada) and Lexi Boles (West Des Moines Dowling).

Crompton has started 31 of the Redbirds’ 32 games and is third on the team in scoring, at 9.6 points per game. She is by far the team’s most dangerous outside shooter.

Juliunn Redmond, a 5-foot-11 senior guard, leads Illinois State at 17.5 points per game.

Boles was a high school teammate of Clark.

Kristen Gillespie is in her fifth year at Illinois State and owns a career mark of 87-60.

The parallels of 2019 and 2022 are numerous for the Hawkeyes. A No. 2 seed. A potential trip to Greensboro.

In 2019, it nearly came crashing down in the 2-vs.-15 first-round matchup, in which the Hawkeyes trailed late at Carver before escaping Mercer.

“This group is smart enough. They remember that,” Bluder said. “These guys are pretty savvy. They understand the consequences of looking ahead.”

Comments: jeff.linder@thegazette.com