Late offensive foul call not Hawkeyes’ problem after they gutted their way to title game

CLEVELAND — The women’s basketball game Iowa won Friday night won’t be recalled by Cleveland, East Cleveland, or Anytown, USA for the Hawkeyes persevering after an poor first half.

In Iowa’s mind, that’s somebody else’s problem. Namely, Connecticut’s and anyone else who chooses to be bothered by it. The Hawkeyes’ focus shifts to Sunday’s championship clash with mighty, mighty South Carolina, with the Hawkeyes needing 40 great minutes to have a chance to climb Mt. Olympus.

Iowa certainly scaled a summit in the second half Friday after escaping a pit of a cold-shooting, turnover-filled first 20 minutes. The Hawkeyes came from 12 points down in the second quarter to take out a second women’s basketball national power in five days with their gutty comeback win in Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

To the outer world, though, this game goes down as yet another chapter in the Big Book of Questionable Women’s Basketball Officiating, which grew by dozens of pages last year after LSU’s win over the Hawkeyes in the national-title game.

You got a call Friday night, Hawkeyeland. When the officials assessed an offensive foul on Connecticut’s Aaliyah Edwards with 3.9 seconds left and the Huskies a basket from taking the lead, you got a huge one.

I’m not saying the call of the screening Edwards’ lean into Iowa’s Gabbie Marshall was wrong in the Hawkeyes’ 71-69 victory. A moving screen is a moving screen, a correct call is a correct call.

But when do you see a call like that made in that kind of situation, when the world wants to see a great and important contest determined by the players on the last play? Not bloody often.

“That call in that moment, I’m saying you can’t make it,” ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt said to basketball analyst Andraya Carter on SportsCenter after the game.

“That call sucked, SVP,” Carter said.

Iowa loves and agrees with the call. A lot of neutral observers without any skin in the game do not. But as it turned out, a lot also did.

“My point of view, it was pretty clean,” Edwards said.

“There's probably an illegal screen call that you could make on every single possession,” Huskies Coach Geno Auriemma said. “I just know there were three or four of them called on us and I don't think there were any called on them. So I guess we just gotta get better on not setting illegal screens.”

In regards to the first 39 minutes and 56 seconds … After 12 first-half turnovers and just 26 points, Iowa had zero turnovers and 25 points in the third quarter.

Thus, the Hawkeyes will do something UConn has done so often over the last 30-plus years as a rite of nature: Play in consecutive national-title contests.

Weeks ago, I heard a basketball person say Iowa could get to the Final Four on Caitlin Clark’s back, but it would take the team to win after that. This was a team win, starting and ending with the five starters. Like Sydney Affolter, whose six offensive rebounds helped her team out-board the defense-crazed Huskies, 37-29.

At 37 minutes, sixth-year senior forward Kate Martin played the least amount of the five, only because she got her nose bloodied in the third quarter and had to scoot to the dressing room to get it clotted before she hustled back to the bench.

Martin scored three of Iowa’s last five baskets. Marshall and Hannah Stuelke had the others. Clark’s last hoop came with 7:55 left.

Martin’s fourth-quarter scores were powerful and polished at the same time.

“Kate's a pro player,” Clark said afterward. “You see her game, she's hitting fadeaway jump shots, she's going at people.”

“Knock-down shots,” said Martin. “I work on those every single day.”

Marshall’s defense on first-team All-America Paige Bueckers was reminiscent of her sublime defensive play against South Carolina in Iowa’s national-semifinal win a year ago.

Marshall knew what she was doing on that final, ill-fated UConn play that resulted in the foul call of the tournament.

“I knew they would set some type of screen for Paige,” Marshall said. “They wanted to get Paige the ball. I just remember trying to stay on her hip.”

Marshall ran toward the crowd in roaring glee when she heard the foul call.

“I was happy it was called, excited after,” she said.

But who was the star of this game, this tense national semifinal? That might be sophomore Stuelke, who has never been better than this night. If you put $10 at some kooky betting site on her leading all scorers in a game featuring Clark and Bueckers, enjoy your new car or house.

Stuelke had 23 points, made 9 of 12 shots and 5 of 7 free throws, drew five fouls, and played aggressively, bravely and poised.

“They just fed me the ball very well,” Cedar Rapids’ Stuelke said. “And the ball was going in for me tonight.”

On a team of talkers, Stuelke finds speaking about herself far less comfortable than playing great ball in front of the world. She gets flustered, starts laughing in embarrassment. Luckily, she has Clark to describe her.

“I think Hannah's tremendous,” Clark said. “I think tonight she played with an energy about herself. She really could go out there and dominate.

“She goes toe-to-toe with Aaliyah Edwards, who in my mind is one of the best players in the country. It was physical with her. Guarded her well. Boxed her out. And she wasn't afraid to take it at her either, I thought.”

Concern about how the Hawkeyes will contend with unbeaten, 6.5-point favorite South Carolina in Sunday afternoon’s championship bout could wait. Doing what the Hawkeyes did to get to this ultimate game was deserving of a brief late-night celebration Friday. Again.

Their fans fretted and sweated. The players?

“I think everybody's confidence has been at an all-time high throughout the Big Ten tournament and during the NCAA tournament,” said Clark. “And that's how it needs to be, and that's the reason we're at this point.”

Stuelke had no problem stating this: “I don't think I was ever worried about the game.”

This, folks, is a basketball team.

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Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com