Indiana women's basketball can't keep pace with Iowa's Caitlin Clark

IOWA CITY — The only blizzard in Iowa City on Saturday night came in the form of a 6-foot-0 senior guard.

Caitlin Clark lit up the Indiana women's basketball team on Saturday night in a primetime battle for first place in the Big Ten. She led Iowa to a 84-57 win with game-high 30 points including six 3-pointers.

No. 14 Indiana's (14-2; 5-1 Big Ten) 13-game win streak came crashing to a halt as No. 3 Iowa (17-1; 6-0) becomes the lone unbeaten team left in the conference. Mackenzie Holmes had a team-high 16 points as one of three players in double-digits for the Hoosiers.

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Indiana women's basketball gets snowed under in the third quarter

Everything fell apart for Indiana in the third quarter. 

While Clark was burying 3-point shots from near mid-court — yes, more than one — IU went 3 of 11 from the field and turned it over six times. Iowa turned a six-point halftime advantage into a 65-48 lead. The sequence at the end of the quarter with Clark burying a 3-pointer, stealing the ball and setting up Molly Davis for a fast break layup summed up how things went for the Hoosiers.

Indiana was able to overcome the frequent turnovers in the first half by shooting 55.2% from the field, but that wasn't the case coming out of halftime.

Iowa women's basketball team puts on a fireworks show

Iowa rained down 3-point attempts on Indiana at a greater clip than it had all season. This was already a Hawkeyes team ranked 11th in the NCAA with 27.1 3-point attempts per game. They blew past that mark with more than five minutes to go in the third quarter. Their 15 3-point field goals tied for second most this season and their 36 attempts were a season-high.

Clark is willing to put the ball up at anytime from anywhere on the court — she was 6 of 16 — but she’s a good passer and burned the Hoosiers anytime they brought an extra defender to help out. Davis had 18 points and was 2 of 4 from 3-point range and Gabbi Marshall had 12 points and was 4 of 7 from the arc.

The two-time defending Big Ten Player of the Year got a standing ovation when she checked out of the game for good with 2:52 to go.

Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.