Iowa star Caitlin Clark has a challenge for her teammates as the end of the season approaches and March Madness looms. The Hawkeyes have had a phenomenal season, in part because of the productivity of Clark. However, the team has suffered tough losses on the year, such as the 100-92 overtime loss to Ohio State on January 21st that ended Iowa's 15-game win streak and the decisive 86-69 loss to Indiana on February 22nd.

The Hawkeyes have proven their ability to bounce back after less-than-stellar performances, as they showed on Sunday in a 101-85 victory over Illinois. Iowa's win over Illinois came partly because of an afternoon of red-hot shooting as they drained 17 three-pointers. In post-game comments obtained by ESPN, Clark believes that the key to success in the March Madness tournament is the Hawkeyes continuing to show their shooting prowess.

“That's what we're going to need going forward. It can't be one or two people. It's hard to play box-and-one, it's hard to play zone when we shoot the ball like this. Hopefully, it was just a good learning experience for us at Indiana and showed us things we have to clean up. Their environment was great, so that could have sped us up, too. So just staying a little more calm.”

Clark also gave her interpretation of what went wrong against Indiana, further making the point that the team has to be better leading into the end of the season.

“We felt like we were really sped up on offense at Indiana. We also just didn't make shots. We took a lot of good shots, but there were also a lot of things we could have done a lot better on the offensive end. Coming back here, you want to have a really good performance and feel really great about yourself going into the last week of regular-season play. I thought that's exactly what we did.”

Iow plays Minnesota on Wednesday at 9 PM EST with the game being streamed on Peacock. They then travel to Ohio State to face off against the Buckeyes in a highly anticipated rematch on Sunday at 1 PM with the game being broadcast on Fox.