2008 Woodie Awards
More turnovers than a bakery
Brendan Stiles - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 11/29/07 Section: Sports
- Page 1 of 1
Georgia Tech's nickname may be the Yellow Jackets, but to say they stung the Iowa women's basketball team wouldn't tell the whole story from Wednesday evening inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
A slow start, coupled with agonizing turnovers, doomed the Hawkeyes in the women's first-ever Big Ten/ACC Challenge on the women's side, as the Yellow Jackets managed to leave Iowa City with a 76-57 victory over Iowa.
The game was almost five minutes old before junior Megan Skouby finally drew first blood for Iowa. With the exception of senior Stacy Schlapkohl and her nine unanswered points for the Hawkeyes during the early portion of the first half, Iowa looked flat, something that caught coach Lisa Bluder off guard.
"We saw that kind of pressure in Cancún, so I'm surprised that it really shocked us as much as it did," she said.
In the second half, Iowa managed to exert a lot more energy. The spark came from junior Wendy Ausdemore, whom the Yellow Jackets did a good job of containing for most of the first 20 minutes. Ausdemore simply caught fire, and Georgia Tech simply had no answer, as she finished with a total of 23 points.
Iowa finally took the lead after a technical foul was called on Georgia Tech. Skouby knocked down both technical free throws to give the Hawkeyes a 42-40 advantage with 13:37 remaining.
With 7:12 remaining, the Hawkeyes had a 50-49 lead. But as soon as the Yellow Jackets knocked down a pair of free throws to retake the lead, Georgia Tech got white hot from the 3-point line, knocking down four-straight 3's to put the game out of reach.
But what the Hawkeyes will take away the most from this game were the turnovers, especially after committing 26, resulting in 35 Yellow Jacket points. Meanwhile, Georgia Tech turned the ball over 16 times, but they only resulted in eight Iowa points.
"We really hurt ourselves with the turnovers, more than anything else," Bluder said. "We had a tie game, and it was a meltdown at that point. I really can't explain it.
"I don't know what happened to our basketball team in the last seven minutes. I feel like we had been in pressure situations and had responded positively, but today, I just didn't see us respond the way I had seen us in the past."
Now, the Hawkeyes look forward to Dec. 2, when Detroit Mercy comes to Carver. In the meantime, they must get the turnover situation figured out, as well as go back to playing the type of defense that has gotten them four wins up to this point.
"Defense is our main focus this year, and we got to look back, watch some film, and look at what we did," Ausdemore said. "As a team, as a whole, we just got to continue to work together, to trust each other on the defensive end, because when things aren't going right on offense, the defense has got to get it done."
E-mail DI columnist Brendan Stiles at:
brendan-stiles@uiowa.edu
A slow start, coupled with agonizing turnovers, doomed the Hawkeyes in the women's first-ever Big Ten/ACC Challenge on the women's side, as the Yellow Jackets managed to leave Iowa City with a 76-57 victory over Iowa.
The game was almost five minutes old before junior Megan Skouby finally drew first blood for Iowa. With the exception of senior Stacy Schlapkohl and her nine unanswered points for the Hawkeyes during the early portion of the first half, Iowa looked flat, something that caught coach Lisa Bluder off guard.
"We saw that kind of pressure in Cancún, so I'm surprised that it really shocked us as much as it did," she said.
In the second half, Iowa managed to exert a lot more energy. The spark came from junior Wendy Ausdemore, whom the Yellow Jackets did a good job of containing for most of the first 20 minutes. Ausdemore simply caught fire, and Georgia Tech simply had no answer, as she finished with a total of 23 points.
Iowa finally took the lead after a technical foul was called on Georgia Tech. Skouby knocked down both technical free throws to give the Hawkeyes a 42-40 advantage with 13:37 remaining.
With 7:12 remaining, the Hawkeyes had a 50-49 lead. But as soon as the Yellow Jackets knocked down a pair of free throws to retake the lead, Georgia Tech got white hot from the 3-point line, knocking down four-straight 3's to put the game out of reach.
But what the Hawkeyes will take away the most from this game were the turnovers, especially after committing 26, resulting in 35 Yellow Jacket points. Meanwhile, Georgia Tech turned the ball over 16 times, but they only resulted in eight Iowa points.
"We really hurt ourselves with the turnovers, more than anything else," Bluder said. "We had a tie game, and it was a meltdown at that point. I really can't explain it.
"I don't know what happened to our basketball team in the last seven minutes. I feel like we had been in pressure situations and had responded positively, but today, I just didn't see us respond the way I had seen us in the past."
Now, the Hawkeyes look forward to Dec. 2, when Detroit Mercy comes to Carver. In the meantime, they must get the turnover situation figured out, as well as go back to playing the type of defense that has gotten them four wins up to this point.
"Defense is our main focus this year, and we got to look back, watch some film, and look at what we did," Ausdemore said. "As a team, as a whole, we just got to continue to work together, to trust each other on the defensive end, because when things aren't going right on offense, the defense has got to get it done."
E-mail DI columnist Brendan Stiles at:
brendan-stiles@uiowa.edu
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