Caitlin Clark torches Indiana as Iowa hands Hoosiers first Big Ten loss

In a matchup of two undefeated Big Ten teams with matching 13-game winning streaks, No. 13 Indiana came out as the ones vanquished Saturday night. IU fell to No. 3 Iowa, 84-57, at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City.

IU is now 14-2, (5-1 Big Ten), while Iowa improved to 17-1 (6-0 Big Ten).

"I wish we could've played so much better than we did tonight," IU coach Teri Moren said. "Every ounce of credit goes to Iowa, they were terrific."

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Here are three observations from the game: 

The Caitlin Clark show

IU coach Teri Moren acknowledged Friday the Hoosiers, like most teams around the country, have not figured out a solid way to successfully guard Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark. IU’s hope was to, at the very least, limit her to lower than her 30-point average per game.

In the first quarter, the Hoosiers were successful. Clark went 0-for-6 from 3-point range in the first 10 minutes and had eight points from getting to the rim. Then, Clark made her first 3-pointer at the 7-minute mark of the second. As the Carver-Hawkeye Arena crowd roared, Clark made a second consecutive shot beyond the arc, and the floodgates opened.

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IU guard Lexus Bargesser forced an offensive foul on Clark with five minutes left in the half, sending her to the bench for a while. But the Iowa senior checked back in with two minutes left in the half, burying two more 3s to get her total to 20 on the half. 

As the second half went on, it appeared as nothing could stop Clark. She seemed to suffer an injury twice — one when she fell on her elbow, and another when she tweaked her ankle and limped off to the locker room — but she returned just as quickly as she checked out. 

She got Carver-Hawkeye on its feet multiple times with her 3s and reached 30 points (for the 46th time of her career) by the end of the third quarter. She picked up a double-double in the third quarter with 10 assists.

While Clark didn't pick up any more points in the fourth quarter, she didn't need to — Iowa was already leading by 15 points, and her teammates continued the scoring for her. Clark left the game after picking up her fourth foul at the 3-minute mark, garnering raucous cheers from the crowd.

IU also emphasized while it couldn’t stop Clark, it could try and limit everyone else. But Iowa senior guard Molly Davis broke through IU’s defense in the first half, matching her season-high of 13 points at halftime and finishing with 18 points.

"We certainly didn't do what we needed to do, not on Cait, not on the rest of those guys," Moren said. "Molly Davis to have 18 points, just things like that. You know Cait's probably going to get her average, but you don't want to let those other guys have big nights. Unfortunately, we let too many of them have their way with us."

Turnover prone

IU is not a big turnover team. Coming into the game against Iowa, IU was averaging just 13 turnovers per game.

By halftime against the Hawkeyes, the Hoosiers already had nine. 

"Against a good team like Iowa, you can't afford a lot of turnovers, especially that many," senior Chloe Moore-McNeil said. "They're going to make you pay, any team that's good is going to make you pay for a lot of turnovers."

Sophomore guard Yarden Garzon, who struggled against Iowa’s defense in the paint in the first half, picked up five of those first-half turnovers. She traveled in the paint three times, then committed an offensive foul against Molly Davis — which was reviewed for a flagrant as Garzon accidentally hit Davis in the face.

"She has not looked comfortable, and she has struggled," Moren said of Garzon. "We need her, and I don't have an answer. You know, she's had some other things that have been going on , but we gotta get her back on track."

IU shot better from the floor than Iowa in the first half, but those turnovers allowed the Hawkeyes many more opportunities to take shots. Iowa took 37 shots from the floor in the first half, making 15, while IU took 29 (making 16),

IU’s turnover woes continued into the second half, as the Hoosiers committed four turnovers in five minutes to start the third quarter. That stretch, with Carver-Hawkeye Arena howling again, led Iowa on a 9-0 run and a near four-minute scoring drought for the Hoosiers. 

Hoosiers go cold from beyond the arc

While Hawkeyes and Hoosiers made roughly the same number of shots from the field Saturday night, the difference was how many of those shots were 3-pointers.

Both the Hoosiers and the Hawkeyes struggled from beyond the arc in the first quarter, with IU going 1-of-4 from the 3-point line and Iowa going 2-of-13. But that's where the similarities ended.

Clark led the charge on Iowa's barrage of 3-pointers on Saturday night, making six of her 16 shots beyond the arc (including one from the Hawkeye logo). Hawkeye senior guard Gabbie Marshall also found fire beyond the arc, going 4-of-7 for 12 points.

In contrast, IU's 3-point shooters went cold. Garzon was the Hoosiers' best shooter beyond the arc Saturday, going 3-of-7 from the field. Sara Scalia and Sydney Parrish suffered from the 3-point line, however, going 0-of-4 and 1-of-4, respectively.

"We just weren't hitting shots," Moren said. "There were a couple moments where I did think we looked not as organized offensively as we'd like to look, and we were kind of going off-script."