The Iowa women's basketball team is looking to make another run to the Final Four this season, and so far so good for the Hawkeyes in the NCAA Tournament.
Iowa opened up their NCAA Tournament run on Saturday with a 91-65 win over 16 seed Holy Cross, and then they took down eight seed West Virginia 64-54. Next up for Caitlin Clark and the Hawkeyes is five seed Colorado women's basketball on Saturday.
Iowa women's basketball does have one advantage over the rest of the NCAA Tournament, and that is Caitlin Clark, one of the best shooters that basketball has ever seen. Colorado women's basketball star Tameiya Sadler knows that going up against her will be tough, but they can't put too much focus on Clark and her antics.
“Caitlin’s very emotional, so for us, it’s like, we can’t feed into her emotions that she’s going to play with,” Tameiya Sadler said, according to an article from The Denver Post. “Because she’s going to fall, she’s going to throw up her hands, she’s going to talk to the refs. But at the end of the day, we can’t focus on that. We have to focus on us.”
On the other hand, Colorado realizes that they have a chance to get into Clark's head. If they're going to beat Iowa, that will certainly help their chances.
“It’d be hard to get into her head,” Sadler said. “But we’re going to try it. We’re going to keep going. We’re going to give her our best fight, for sure, give her anything that we have to throw her off her game and get this one.”
Colorado wants to play villain against Iowa
After the season that Iowa women's basketball has had, no one is expecting them to lose this game, and no one is expecting them to lose before the Final Four. Well, except for Colorado.
“For sure,” Sadler said in regards to bouncing the Hawkeyes from the tournament. “I feel like, going into the Kansas State game, we were like, ‘We want to come in and ruin everyone’s day.' This is what we want to do. And so we like that underdog mentality because that’s when we play our best brand of basketball. So we were excited to be that villain.”
One of the biggest challenges that Colorado will face in this game is going to be at the free-throw line. Iowa and specifically Caitlin Clark have been getting to the charity stripe a lot, and the Buffaloes know that it's going to be a big part of this game as well.
“I think the biggest thing is actually a mental approach to that because you’re not going to avoid the fouls. We all know that,” Buffaloes guard Kindyll Wetta said. “But how are you going to respond when you do get the foul call?
“Are you going to argue? Are you going to complain? Or are you just going to say, ‘OK, I need to focus, keep playing the game, and not let this bother me?’ So I would say (it’s) mostly mental.”
The way that the refs are calling the game will have an effect on Colorado's approach, but they know that they have to be aggressive no matter what if they want to beat Iowa.
“We’re just going to see how the refs are calling the game and go from there,” Tameiya Sadler added. “But we’re a defensive team, and so we pride ourselves on defense. And we’re going to go out there and be aggressive, no matter what.”
Iowa and Colorado will tip off at 3:30 ET on Saturday from MVP Arena in Albany, N.Y. The game will be airing on ABC, and the Hawkeyes are currently favored by 7.5 points.
Follow Us
Subscribe