IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Caitlin Clark struggled through a poor shooting performance and No. 2 Iowa failed to score in the last three minutes Thursday night, falling to Kansas State 65-58.
Clark, The Associated Press national player of the week in women’s basketball who swept national player of the year awards and led the Hawkeyes to their first NCAA championship game last season, scored 24 points on 9-for-32 shooting from the field and 2-for-16 sniping from long distance, failing to make her first 3-pointer until just over a minute left in the second quarter.
“There are going to be nights I don’t shoot the ball very well,” Clark said. “I don’t think I helped myself, not getting to the basket and taking advantage of fouls when I needed to.”
Iowa (3-1), which had been averaging 92 points in its first three games, shot just 36.1% from the field and was 2 for 21 from long distance.
“We have to understand we’re not going to shoot the ball great every game, I’m not going to shoot the ball great every game,” Clark said. “But we have to find other ways to win.”
Kansas State coach Jeff Mittie said the plan to defend Clark was to throw “waves” of players at her.
“We weren’t going to guard her with one player,” Mittie said.
The Wildcats’ defense derailed anything Iowa wanted to do.
“It felt like there was really no flow to the game,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “We couldn’t get our transition game going.”
The Hawkeyes had just two fast-break points. That was Kansas State’s plan.
“We knew that this one would be won in transition,” said center Ayoka Lee, who had 22 points, including 10 in the fourth quarter. “We had to have transition (defense). It fell apart some times, but we did a good job of picking it back up when it fell apart.”
“We were able to keep them from getting the easy runouts,” Mittie said. “We wanted to make that as hard as we could on them, and it was easier said than done.”
Kansas State also handed Iowa its first loss last season, when the Hawkeyes were ranked fourth.
The Wildcats (3-0), who went almost eight minutes without a point during a stretch in the second half, trailed 58-53 with 2:42 left before holding the Hawkeyes without a point the rest of the way.
“It really came down to the fourth quarter,” Bluder said. “They beat us in the fourth quarter. They beat us in crunch time.”
