Ava Heiden scored a career-high 29 points, but Iowa nearly ended up on the wrong side of history. Iowa plays No. 10 Virginia in the second round on Monday (1 p.m., ESPN).
IOWA CITY - As the temperatures outside nearly reached 90 degrees, the temperature inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena was hotter than expected.
Iowa women's basketball's longtime home rarely plays hosts to games in this kind of heat (there's no air conditioning), so there was an unusual humid feeling in the arena, but Mother Nature wasn't the only thing that was hot on Saturday.
The capacity crowd of 15,000 fans didn't expect to sweat out this game, but boy did they ever. Their No. 2-seeded Hawkeyes had to battle for all 40 minutes, but they managed to narrowly escape the 15th-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson Knights in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Here are three observations from Iowa's win:
Second Quarter Struggles
As well as the first quarter went for Iowa, the second was the exact opposite. A 20-5 lead to open the game was quickly extinguished by a three-point shooting barrage from Fairleigh Dickinson. The Knights made four consecutive triples to slice the Hawkeyes' lead to just three after the first, and the swift change in momentum caused Iowa to lose focus.
The Hawkeyes went just 3-for-15 from the floor in the second quarter (seven points total), and it allowed Fairleigh Dickinson to jog jubilantly into the locker room down by just a point, 27-26.
Turnovers were a major problem for Iowa as well. The Knights' focus was defending the paint, and their guards played with active hands, forcing four turnovers in the frame (nine in the half).
The rest of the game wasn't much better for the Hawkeyes, but tell head coach Jan Jensen and her coaching staff that this was Iowa's worst quarter of the entire season, and she'll probably agree with you.
"But we didn't really finish so much and that was on me to not look so we didn't look so fluid on offense," Jensen said. "We were a little tight, so I need to make sure I hit a little bit different buttons when we go into the game on Monday night."
Heiden sets new career-high
Ava Heiden has been nothing short of spectacular this year. Whenever Iowa has needed a bucket in a crucial moment this season, the ball has been placed in Heiden's hands.
That was the story of Saturday's game. On a day where the Hawkeyes couldn't hit from distance (1/13), they needed to generate offense in the paint. Hannah Stuelke collected 13 points, but Heiden completely overwhelmed Fairleigh Dickinson inside.
The sophomore finished with a new career-high 29 points, which was exactly half of Iowa's entire game total. She was effective in spurts through the first three quarters, but the fourth quarter was where she made her money. 15 of Heiden's 29 points came in the fourth quarter, and each bucket was a devastating blow to the Knights' heart.
The biggest bucket came out of the fourth quarter media timeout. Iowa led by just one, 44-43, at this point and desperately needed anything resembling an offense to get past the Knights.
Heiden received the ball right out of the timeout and finished at the rim to give the Hawks a three-point lead. The sophomore then followed up with a pair of foul shots to further extend the advantage to five.
Fairleigh Dickinson did knock in a three on its ensuing possession, but that was its penultimate bucket of the game.
"I think that Hannah and the guards were doing a great job finding me in the post," Heiden said. "I think that was part of the game plan, that FDU is a little bit undersized so we really wanted to capitalize on that and I think we did a good job on that in the fourth quarter."
It's the little things that win games in March, and Heiden scoring out of a timeout in that situation may have been the difference in the game.
Iowa was almost on the wrong side of history
The NCAA women's tournament has historically favored the higher seeds, especially in the 2/15 matchup. A No. 15 seed has never beaten a No. 2 seed in NCAA history, but that drought nearly ended in Iowa City.
The primary word in that sentence is nearly, however. Iowa came close to disaster, but it didn't allow it to happen. That's March.
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