Iowa blows out Ohio State for Big Ten women’s basketball tournament championship repeat

MINNEAPOLIS — It’s time to add another banner at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, and the banner needs to have an exclamation point.

Iowa not only won its second consecutive Big Ten women’s basketball tournament title Sunday, it made the feat look easy in a 105-72 rout of Ohio State.

“Easy?” Kate Martin said. “I don’t know. They’re a really good team. … Didn’t feel that easy, but it was really fun.”

The second quarter was especially impressive, as Iowa had a 35-15 scoring advantage and had nine assists versus one turnover.

“The second quarter might be the very best quarter of basketball that I’ve seen or been a part of in a long time,” Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder said.

Iowa missed only eight field goals in the first half. Ohio State, meanwhile, had only nine field goals made in the half.

It allowed the Hawkeyes to go into halftime with a 37-point lead.

“That did allow us to have a lot of fun in the second half,” Martin said. “We were just basking in that moment.”

Ohio State overcame a 24-point deficit a day earlier against top-seeded Indiana, but the Hawkeyes’ lead was never in jeopardy Sunday.

Iowa star guard Caitlin Clark’s hot shooting helped the Hawkeyes amass the insurmountable lead.

Clark had 23 points in the first half on 7-of-11 shooting, and Monika Czinano had 17. The entire Ohio State team had 24 points in the half on 9-of-36 shooting.

Clark finished with 30 points, 17 assists and 10 rebounds — her 10th career triple-double and the first triple-double in Big Ten championship game history — and was named the tournament’s most outstanding player.

As Clark grabbed her 10th rebound, the pro-Iowa crowd at the Target Center roared. Most people in the Target Center, including Clark, knew she needed that rebound to earn the triple-double.

“When she got that last rebound and she raced down the court with that biggest grin on her face, that’s joy,” Bluder said.

Czinano, playing again in her home state, finished with 26 points on 11-for-12 shooting. Her shooting efficiency set a new Big Ten tournament record.

Clark, Czinano and Gabbie Marshall were named to the Big Ten all-tournament team.

Martin had 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting, and Sydney Affolter scored 11 points. Affolter was 2-of-3 from the field and 7-of-8 from the free-throw line.

The Hawkeyes shot 62 percent from the field and 50 percent from deep in the win. Eight different Iowa players scored.

It was such an offensive onslaught — 105 points is a Big Ten tournament record — that the Target Center staff had to adjust the scoreboard font at each baseline to fit the triple-digit total.

The massive lead allowed coach Lisa Bluder to empty the bench.

It was almost the opposite script from two years ago, when Iowa went to the Big Ten championship and gave up 104 points to Maryland in a 20-point loss.

“We were one of the youngest teams in the Big Ten,” Czinano said. “Us getting to the championship game that year was pretty incredible. ... It’s been cool to see that growth.”

Sunday marks the first time in program history that Iowa has won back-to-back Big Ten tournament titles. When including both the regular season and tournament, Iowa won consecutive Big Ten titles in 1996-98 and 1992-93.

This year’s tournament title has added meaning after coming up short on the regular-season title by one game.

“We weren't regular season champs this year, so we came here with something on our minds that we really wanted to get,” Clark said. “This was one of our goals.”

Iowa’s tournament title path required beating the No. 5 and No. 14 teams in the AP Poll along with a Purdue team that ESPN projects to be one of the last at-large teams in the NCAA Tournament field.

“This isn’t an easy tournament to win,” Clark said. “There’s not any cupcakes given.”

Along with clinching Iowa’s Big Ten tournament title, the win also strengthens Iowa’s argument for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1991-92.

ESPN’s Charlie Creme still projects Iowa to be a No. 2 seed, though, as of Sunday evening.

“We just survived one of the hardest conference tournaments in the country,” Bluder said as she made her case for being a No. 1 seed. “We beat two teams that were predicted to be a 1-seed in the last eight days. I don't know what else you can do to get this.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com