Women's Basketball Upsets #8 Iowa To Earn Trip to Sweet 16

Iowa City, Iowa -- Sophomore Lauren Jensen's three-pointer with 12.6 seconds left helped the Creighton women's basketball team clinch a trip to its first Sweet 16 in program history with a 64-62 win at No. 8 Iowa on Sunday, March 20. The BIG EAST's Co-Most Improved player after transferring in from the Iowa program a year ago, Jensen scored nine of Creighton's 13 points in the fourth quarter as the Bluejays ended the game on a 6-0 run in the final 85 seconds.

With the victory, Creighton (22-9) advances to next Friday's Regional Semifinal in Greensboro, N.C., where it will take on the winner of tonight's Iowa State/Georgia match-up. A game time and network coverage for that contest would be announced on Monday evening.

Creighton opened the game with three consecutive lay-ups, including a pair from sophomore Emma Ronsiek, before back-to-back three-pointers from senior Payton Brotzki helped the Bluejays to a 12-11 lead. CU led 17-15 after six minutes, owning a 9-1 rebounding advantage. CU maintained the lead for the majority of the quarter and a triple from Jensen in the closing seconds put the Bluejays in front 23-17. Creighton outrebounded Iowa 17-5 in the quarter and owned an 11-0 lead in second chance points.

The Bluejays kept up the pressure in the second quarter, stretching the lead to 33-23 with 6:41 left in the quarter following a 5-0 run. CU's biggest lead of the second quarter was 38-26 with 1:55 left after a pair of free throws by Morgan Maly, but the Hawkeyes closed out the quarter on a 6-0 run to cut the Bluejay lead to 38-32 at the half.

Brotzki led Creighton with 11 points in the opening half, while Maly contributed eight points and seven rebounds off the bench. The Bluejays made 8-of-23 three-pointers in the first 20 minutes and led the board battle 29-15. CU led 10-2 in bench points, as well. Iowa was paced by 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting from Monika Czinano while NCAA scoring and assist leader Caitlin Clark contributed 11 points and seven assists.

The Hawkeyes opened the second half on a 6-2 run to get within two at 40-38, only to come up empty on two chances to score before an Emma Ronsiek lay-up temporarily quieted the sellout crowd of 14,382. The Bluejays would take a 51-48 lead into the fourth quarter despite Czinano's 10 points in the quarter that gave her 25 overall.

Clark connected on a pair of free throws to start the fourth quarter and missed a driving lay-up that could have given the Hawkeyes their first lead since the third minute. The Bluejays responded with a lay-up by Tatum Rembao and a free throw by Ronsiek to return the lead to 54-50. Iowa got back-to-back three-pointers by Gabbie Marshall to take a 56-54 lead with 6:51 left. A lay-up by Czinano with 5:31 remaining gave Iowa its biggest lead at 58-54 and prompted a timeout from CU coach Jim Flanery to slow Iowa's 8-0 run.

Lauren Jensen drove through traffic with the shot clock winding down the halve the Hawkeye edge. CU missed layups on its next two possessions before Katie Martin made a layup of her own to return the Iowa advantage to 60-56 with just over three minutes remaining before a Jensen pull-up jumper with 2:46 left got CU within two points. After another Bluejay miss, McKenna Warnock's putback with 1:36 left returned the Hawkeye lead to four (62-58). Jensen's driving hoop with 1:26 left got the Jays back within two, but a driving lay-up by CU was off the mark once again with just under a minute remaining.

CU got a stop and Rembao fed Jensen at the top of the key, who buried a go-ahead three-pointer with 12.6 left. The Hawkeyes went to their National Player of the Year candidate Clark, who missed a lay-up and Mogensen grabbed the rebound. Iowa had two fouls to give before hacking Ronsiek with 3.6 left. She made the second shot and Iowa called timeout to advance the ball.

Down two, the Hawkeyes fed Czinano in the paint, who missed a turnaround jumper. Warnock's tip-in try also fell short as the Creighton bench stormed the court in celebration at the final horn.

Czinano scored a gme-high 27 points on 12-of-20 shooting for Iowa.The nation's leading scorer with 27.4 points per game, Clark was limited to a season-low 15 on 4-of-19 shooting and just four free throws in the second half, though the All-American did contribute team-highs with 11 assists and eight rebounds.

Jensen scored nine of CU's final 10 points to lead the Bluejays with a team-high 19., while Brotzki and Ronisek each scored 13. Ronsiek added 10 rebounds for second double-double of the season, and Maly snared a career-best 13 boards. The Bluejays shot 35.8 percent overall and drained 10 three-pointers, with Jensen's game-winner being the only make of the final quarter. CU won the rebound battle 52-37 and outscored the Hawkeye bench 15-4.

NOTES: Creighton made a three-pointer for the 452nd straight game ... With 15 assists on Sunday, Creighton took over the national lead with 636 to surpass Oklahoma (627) for the top spot. The Sooners are to play later on Sunday night ... Sophomore Morgan Maly finished with a career-high 13 rebounds ... Tatum Rembao (190) passed Mindy Hendrickson (188) for second on Creighton's single-season assist list with five helpers on Sunday ... Creighton improved to 7-7 all-time in NCAA Tournament play while making its eighth appearance ... It's the first time that Creighton has won consecutive NCAA Tournament games ... Creighton improved to 2-0 all-time against the Hawkeyes in the NCAA Tournament, having also beaten Iowa 76-70 on March 17, 2018 ... Creighton improved to 20-4 this season when leading at halftime.

March 20, 2022
Creighton Bluejays (Jim Flanery, Lauren Jensen, Payton Brotzki)
Media Conference
Creighton 64, Iowa 62
JIM FLANERY: Yeah, storybook for the two people to my left. For Lauren to do what she did today, if people had asked me -- I've gotten the question a lot, how is Lauren going to feel today, what's Lauren going to play like, da da da da? Those last few minutes had to be magical and special, and we're super proud of her and we're super proud that she's part of our program.
Payton has done an incredible job of waiting her time, and she's contributed to our program over her first three years, but she's had a special senior year. She's played unbelievably well for us. She's been a great leader, and I'm just super happy for her because she's been such a big part of why we're going to the first Sweet 16 in the history of our tournament.
Fortunate to win today. Iowa is a great team. It was a great environment. It was great for the sport, great for the participants and the staffs and the fans. It wasn't necessarily the game I envisioned. I did not think the game would be in the low 60s, and it certainly did not start out that way. It started out like it was going to be 98-93 or somewhere in that range.
But both teams kind of settled in, and the familiarity, I think, obviously with playing each other and scrimmaging each other every year and maybe a little bit of fatigue that second day. But you know, just congrats to Iowa on a great year and for the program that they are. It took everything for us to win.
I'm so proud of our group that we found a way, and can't wait to get back and get ready for whoever is next.
Q. Lauren, can you describe what was going through your mind down the stretch as you discovered that offense was pretty hard to come by and you guys needed something?
LAUREN JENSEN: Honestly I knew we would stay together. We've been in those situations before in close games and we've been able to overcome it. Obviously it was a little bit different environment playing in front of 15,000, but I'm super proud of us for staying together and getting our offense going again.
Q. Lauren, even with the environment and everything, for you personally, being so familiar with this place and having been in and out of here a lot, did that help you at all kind of just be able to digest everything today a little easier to where you could go out and make a shot like that?
LAUREN JENSEN: Obviously I'm pretty familiar with the arena because I played here all of last year, but I felt like that definitely helped. But on the flipside, there's also some nerves with that because I'm wearing a different color this year, but I feel like it did help.
Q. For both of you, what's it mean for you personally and then for the sport to play in an environment like this, a sellout where the decibel reading was over 100 for most of the game?
LAUREN JENSEN: Honestly, it means a lot. Anytime there's a sold-out crowd for women's basketball is great, and obviously to have a game like that, it's super awesome, on ABC. It meant a lot.
PAYTON BROTZKI: Yeah, as a senior I've played in a lot of gyms in front of a lot of people, but that was the most special environment that I've ever played in by far. And to have the team that we do by my side through that is really special for our team but also for the sport. Like she said, televised on ABC, we knew that going into it. Had to calm our nerves with that, but it's really, really special for the sport.
Q. Lauren, what was your reaction when you saw the shot go in after you got the ball back and let it rip?
LAUREN JENSEN: Honestly, I was just super excited. I honestly didn't know if it was going to go in. It kind of rattled off the back rim there. It wasn't super clean, but I'm just glad it fell.
Q. The rebounding was such a disparity today. You guys dominated on the boards. What did you guys talk about prior to the game, and can you just comment a little bit on how much you outworked them, especially in the first three quarters?
PAYTON BROTZKI: Yeah, rebounding is a huge focus, not in just this game but in every single game throughout the year. Obviously Czinano is an amazing player, amazing rebounder. We knew we had to kind of win the rebounding battle in that aspect, and that was a huge focus that we had yesterday. And then even this morning we talked about it a lot. Super proud of us for getting that done.
LAUREN JENSEN: Yeah, just kind of echoing what Payton said, that was one of our keys to the game and we went out and executed. Monika Czinano is a great player, great rebounder, same with the rest of the team honestly. So just the fact that we were able to get in there and get tips on the ball, too, I feel like we did that really well. We were able to tip it out to where some of our guards can get the ball, so that was good that we were able to follow through on that part of our game plan.
Q. Could this have possibly been scripted any better for you, Lauren? And, Payton, you had a little confrontation with Caitlin early in the game there. Was that just kind of a mood setter, hey, we're going to be physical, hey, we're here?
LAUREN JENSEN: Yeah, it's crazy. It's honestly so surreal. I feel like it hasn't really set in yet that we're going to the Sweet 16 and just the fact that it was here, still kind of processing that one a little bit.
PAYTON BROTZKI: Yeah, I've played against Caitlin Clark since seventh grade. So she's an amazing player, one of the best in the country. But we wanted to let them know that we were ready to come out and be physical and we were just ready to go.
Q. Lauren and Payton, what does it mean for you to be part of this team and to reach the Sweet 16 for the first time in the program's history?
PAYTON BROTZKI: Flan told us before the game that it's unconditional love no matter what happens, so I think that can be a statement for the whole season. This team truly loves each other unconditionally, and it has been the most fun and also the most successful year that I've ever played in basketball. I just think that's a testament to how we have each other's backs, how close we are as teammates, and it just translates to the court.
LAUREN JENSEN: Yeah, it means a lot. Right away from summer workouts, this team welcomed me with open arms and made me feel at home and a part of the team, and I'm just so grateful for that. To be able to do that with them here today is just so great. We've had such an awesome season, and we knew from preseason workouts that we could do something special, and it's just very rewarding to come here and see that come to fruition.
Q. Lauren, you scored the last two baskets. First was on a drive and then you had the three-pointer. Can you just sort of tell us what you saw on that three-point shot, how you came off a screen or whatever?
LAUREN JENSEN: Yeah, I came off of it kind of assessing my options. I knew that if they were going to switch, I could possibly have a three-point shot because they were kind of sagging off on that. And I ended up passing it back to Tatum, and then that kind of freed me up just a little bit to be able to get the shot off.
Q. Can you kind of talk about how obviously this was a huge win for your team and how you guys are kind of savoring the moment, yet also keeping focus for the next one at the same time?
LAUREN JENSEN: Yeah, you know, we're going to let this one sink in a little bit, celebrate this one. But once we step on the court for practice, we'll be ready to go and locked in for our next opponent.
PAYTON BROTZKI: Yeah, just to echo that we're going to be super excited on the bus ride home for the rest of the night. But tomorrow we're locked in and ready to go as soon as we step on the court again for whoever our next opponent is.
Q. Payton, the start of the game it seemed like you were a little bit more trigger-ready than normal. Were you seeing something different in Iowa's coverages that you felt like you had more opportunities to let it go?
PAYTON BROTZKI: We kind of talked about before the game if they had a big on me just to be shot ready. And that truly comes from my coaches and teammates instilling confidence in me before the game, and that just kind of led to me being more shot ready than normal probably. I missed the first one, but once you see one go down, it's confidence that builds on that for the rest of the game.
Q. Just felt like every moment that went Iowa's way today the crowd was ready to blow the roof off this place. How did your players not let that consume them and affect their play on the court?
JIM FLANERY: I think it helped to be in the building on Friday. I know as a coach, to hear how loud it got during the Illinois State game and for our players to be in the building gave them a sense. I felt like if we hadn't been, maybe it's a little different. Just watching the way Illinois State -- I in particular was watching the Illinois State staff to see how they communicated in game to their team and back, from team back. And we talked about that before the game last night a little, but also this morning, about just the need for more eyes to be to the bench, which is part of what you're asking. But also I think the expectation was that it was going to get loud.
We said Iowa -- again, I said it was a different game than I expected. But we said, Iowa is a great offensive team. They're going to go on 6-0, 8-0 runs. I think just having that planted in their heads a little hopefully made a difference. But also I think we've got poised -- I think we have poised players, and I think we haven't been in that environment before, but we've played a really good schedule. So I don't know, that's probably as close as I can get to capturing it.
Q. Caitlin Clark went 4 of 19 from the floor, only went to the line four times, and then at the end when they absolutely went to her, she didn't make a shot. What did you do today to defend her? I think you had three or four defenders on her, Rachael had a lot of time on her. How impressed were you with your team's ability to slow her down and stop her?
JIM FLANERY: Yeah, that was the game plan was to rotate Tatum and Molly Mogensen and Rachael Saunders on to her, those three in particular. Knowing too that there were going to be times in transition where other people were going to have to take her, and off switches they were going to have to take her. But we just felt like -- they're good at the other spots to make -- obviously Czinano is a super tough cover, but they're good at the other spots to the point where you can't over-help because Marshall is such a good shooter and Taiwo and Warnock.
We just felt like our best chance was to rotate defenders on her, try to keep the ball out of her hands, especially late shot clock, make it difficult for her to catch, and then just be vertical at the rim. Don't bail her out, show your hands to the officials.
I thought they let us play at both ends. For sure they let us play -- I thought both games this weekend, the officiating was consistent in terms of I thought they called verticality pretty well in both games.
So yeah, it was rotate defenders and try to keep the ball -- and keeping a fresher defender on her, that was part of the idea of trying to keep the ball out of her hands a little bit.
Tatum's foul trouble early kind of put a little kink in that plan, but overall I thought we kind of thought that would work, and that was as good as probably you're going to get with somebody that good.
Q. Iowa's 62 was a season low for them. Just your thoughts on that. And after your story about the closet yesterday, we saw you went with khakis. How did that work for you?
JIM FLANERY: Yeah, thanks for that.
Yeah, I think both teams missed opportunities. I mean, I think there was -- I think, like I said, both teams defended well. They did some things to keep us off balance by cross matching Czinano or O'Grady on somebody they wanted to hit a three, either Rembao or Saunders or Payton, and we did some good things, we worked on enough.
But both teams missed opportunities. Emma missed that lay-up late, Tatum missed that wide open lay-up late, but Iowa missed a lot of wide open threes. So I think it was familiarity, but I don't think either team probably played as well offensively as their best.
You know, I think pressure has something to do with that, too.
Q. I think everybody in the building probably knew Monika was going to get the ball at the end. What sort of defense were you trying to run there?
JIM FLANERY: Well, not the one that you saw when we came out. (Laughter).
Really, to be up two, obviously you -- I figured they'd -- you know they're either going dead inside or maybe running an outside hand drive for Caitlin, maybe cut her up the middle of the floor and give her her right hand to go to her outside hand. Those are two things, or just go dead into the post.
Morgan got buried a little bit but she sat on the correct shoulder, she sat on her left shoulder, which is the shoulder that we were consistently telling our kids to sit on when she had her back to the basket.
Fatigue maybe. I think like I said, maybe some of the missed shots late, I think were the product of fatigue. But we were on the correct shoulder. We needed to offer, I felt like, more resistance to the catch. I thought about using my last time-out maybe to -- when I saw their formation, but I didn't, just in case they scored and we needed to -- so...
Q. What was it like to walk into an environment like this? You already know you're going to be on ABC and then you look up and you see almost 15,000 people and have it as loud as it was. What does it mean for the program, for the sport, just for everything in general?
JIM FLANERY: Yeah, it's a little surreal. I mean, I'm getting close to old, and so I've been around long enough to have metal lockers and be in a bigger shared locker space and not have any of the bells and whistles that we currently have. So to see it at this point -- I told Lisa before the game, I said, gosh, this is incredible, and this is a great tribute to you and your staff and your program. And they've obviously been good for a while, but -- you know, the Gustafson years, the interest in Iowa women's basketball was big, but it's obviously at a new level with Caitlin.
Again, it's a tribute to Iowa and what they've done and who and what Caitlin is, but also to the sport, to the greater sport in general and the fact that we're on television. I told somebody that the women's game is actually in a better position to market its best players because the men's best players are gone after a year or two. And Paige and Caitlin and Aliyah Boston and Alissa Smith are there for four years. So you've got a greater opportunity, I think, to grow the sport in that way than on the men's side where the really, really good ones are only there a year or maybe two.
Q. Lauren scored nine in a row for you, nine of your last ten. Given the circumstances, aside from that, but also the stage and the moment, how much guts does it take to do something like that in your opinion?
JIM FLANERY: Yeah, absolutely. I was searching a little bit. They did a good job of making post entry passes hard. They deflected a lot of passes and we felt like we could get Emma more -- that Emma would be able to score a little bit more frequently and efficiently in the post, but I thought they defended the pass pretty well.
Morgan was tired, and we'd kind of explored Molly, so it wasn't total process of elimination. But I do feel like -- because I have so much confidence in Lauren. I'll just tell you a quick story. I started playing some 6:15 morning ball during the pandemic, and this fall we would play at 6:15 on Fridays in the practice facility and the number of times that Lauren was in there was impressive to me.
So as a coach when you have somebody who comes into your program and you're trying to get to know them and you see them when you walk in the gym at 6:00 a.m. and you see somebody who's got the shooting gun set up and putting up jumpers, that resonates, okay. And that's been in my head a lot this year.
I think I've told you when she only took three shots at Nebraska in our third game, I told her in front of the team, Lauren, you have to shoot more, because I know the work that she's put in.
I'm super proud of her and super happy for her because she's put in the work, and so that confidence that I have in her is a lot of what I've seen from her.
Q. Following up on that with Lauren, what do you recall about the conversations you had with her when she said she wanted to leave Iowa and that she wanted to come to Creighton, and what did you expect you were getting when she came to Creighton?
JIM FLANERY: Yeah, honestly I relied on my assistant coaches. I think the way we operate in recruiting, they certainly have more contact with recruits in general than I do. So I think our assistant coaches had established a better -- I had a good relationship with her but had had better relationship with her when we recruited her out of high school. So I think they were more instrumental in selling Iowa than I was.
We just thought that she would fit in. Ironically our leading scorer a year ago was a 2 guard from Lakeville North High School, Temi Carda, so we saw a correlation, and I think she saw a correlation. She knew Temi, she knew the family, she knew Temi's experience, and so that made it, I think, much easier for her to jump when it came down to making a decision where she wanted to go after Iowa.
I certainly credit my staff, and I think Temi's experience made an impact on the family.
Q. I was curious, you called time-out, you're down four, 1:32 to go, you drew up that play to get Lauren a lay-up, but how much of that time-out was you telling everyone, hey, calm down, we're okay? And was Lauren, who's been in this environment, was she saying that to her teammates?
JIM FLANERY: The fourth quarter was about telling them to calm down. I don't know specifically if that time-out was because I felt like that was more -- a little bit more of an X's and O's time-out and just being -- not deviating.
We decided or I decided at about the 3- to 4-minute mark that I wanted to put the ball in Lauren's hands and get Czinano switched on to her and let her go make plays, and that's kind of what we had talked about during the time-outs.
We just got a couple other people get a little excited, and I just wanted to repeat that that's what I wanted, because I felt like she can score at all three levels. Like if you get the switch and get it back to her now, now you've got to guard her all the way up at the three line. And she's a good finisher at the rim, and if they want to bring help, she's a good mid-range shooter.
Really in terms of what we have offensively, she is that player.
Lauren was just -- she's a listener. She's reasonably quiet so she wasn't telling people to calm down but she's a good listener. Tatum and I usually have some sort of banter going, but I felt like they were all really good at listening. You don't come back and win it if you're not still in the moment. That's what we talked about before the game was stay in the moment, don't take your mind back to what you could have done or should have done and don't take it too far forward. Stay in the moment.
I felt like we did a good job of that the last few possessions, so I thought -- it's not just Lauren making the shot, it's everybody else kind of adhering to what we were trying to do.

March 20, 2022
Iowa Hawkeyes (Lisa Bluder, Monika Czinano, Caitlin Clark)
Media Conference
Creighton 64, Iowa 62
LISA BLUDER: Obviously just want to congratulate Creighton. A very well-played game, executed really well, defended really well. That's a hard matchup for us. Five guards is a hard matchup. We knew that.
But they did a great job, and Lauren Jensen was here last year, obviously that's an incredible storyline. She goes over there and she comes back and beats us on our home court, and I want to congratulate her because she's a great kid. She is a really, really good kid. I'm happy for her. I wish it wasn't in this situation, but I am happy for her that she's found a really good home and is really having a lot of success.
Our crowd today was amazing again. I think we broke the NCAA record for first and second rounds of attendance, and I apologize to our fans that they couldn't celebrate a victory with us today.
They have been amazing all year, but boy, these last three games they've been incredible. So I want to thank them.
I want to thank our administration because it's a lot of hard work putting on an event like this and doing it with the class that Iowa does. And I want to thank them for that.
Lastly, I'll say I do believe that that game was called differently than what we've seen all year, and I really think that's unfortunate. We average going to the free-throw line 18 times; we go eight tonight. We averaged 34 fouls being called in a game, 22 were called tonight. It's pretty frustrating when an NCAA championship game is called completely different than the 30 games that prepared you for this point, and that is very frustrating.
But I don't want that to take away anything from Creighton's excellent preparation and their excellent performance.
Q. Monika, the last shot, what did you see and the ball just seemed to hang on the lip there it felt like two months but it was like a quarter of a second. What did you see on that play and how did it shake out?
MONIKA CZINANO: Yeah, I think I had a hook shot. I've shot a million hook shots in my life and that one happened to not go in. I think we've run that play a lot. We needed to run that play, and it was just unfortunate that it didn't go in.
Q. Caitlin, with these teams knowing each other so well, did you feel like that had any impact on kind of the back and forth play there?
CAITLIN CLARK: I mean, obviously yeah. I think we knew each other pretty well. I thought we battled and battled and battled. Obviously didn't perform the way we needed to to win in the fashion that we wanted, and I think we still had a lot of opportunities to win the game. But overall they executed down the stretch and we didn't, and there's a lot of little things that you can go back and pick out from a one-possession game. And I think it's overall just going to be a lot of fuel to the fire next year. I think that's really all you can use it as.
Obviously we're frustrated, we're disappointed, we're sad, but we have our core coming back, and I think that's something bright to look forward to, as well.
Q. Caitlin, can you talk about the emotion part of this game? It seemed like out there at times you were frustrated, whether it was with calls or shots not going in. How were you able to not check those emotions at times and it kind of got you out of your game a little bit?
CAITLIN CLARK: Yeah, I think I'm an emotional player no matter the situation, good or bad. I think that's how I'm going to play really if we're winning, we're losing, I'm playing good, I'm playing bad. Obviously frustrated with the calls, but I think at the same time, I missed some bunnies that I usually make and sometimes that's how basketball goes.
Yeah, it's disappointing, it stinks. Yeah, I would have liked to get more calls. I could say that every single game, Coach Bluder could say that every single game, our opponent could say that every single game. And I'm not going to sit here and make excuses for how I played.
I think just coming back and working harder than I ever have is really all I can do.
Q. Could you guys describe the defensive situation when Lauren took the three-pointer that put them ahead? Was it kind of a scramble there with the screen?
MONIKA CZINANO: Yeah, I mean, at that point we were switching all ball screens. All of their players shoot threes. They're all good from the three-point line. It was easy to switch every single one in that last stretch, and she's a good three-point shooter. We had hands up, she shot over it. It's a great shot down the stretch. She's a great shooter, so props to her for that.
Q. Rebounding was a problem. I think at one point the second-chance points was 15-0. I don't know how it ended up. What happened there?
CAITLIN CLARK: Yeah, I think that was kind of the story of the game as well for us. Obviously in games we've lost, rebounding has been a pretty big issue for us, and it was tonight. When people get more opportunities -- basically double you up on opportunities to shoot the ball, it's going to be really hard to win a basketball game. And the O-boards that they did get, they executed and basically scored on most of them, and that hurt.
At the same time we didn't crash to the best of our ability to get those second-chance opportunities, as well. Yeah, rebounding was an issue.
MONIKA CZINANO: I think something too that they do a little bit differently is they shoot a lot threes, and when you shoot threes it's a lot of long rebounds, which is something that we know, but we might not be as used to the volume of three-point shooting. But I totally agree with Caitlin that that is something that needs to improve for our team and something that has improved this year but can go even further.
Q. I know this one is going to linger for a while, but walking in, seeing the crowd, seeing 14-plus-thousand people, knowing the stage you're on, the network you're on, how do you feel about maybe how you helped elevate the sport and then also the ramifications of a game like this because it's an exciting game in front of a lot of people.
MONIKA CZINANO: Yeah, I mean, I think what Iowa does and how they support women's basketball is unlike anything anywhere. Walking out of the tunnel and seeing that many people is almost unexplainable. It fills you with joy and it makes the game so fun and it fuels you.
I just thank you so much to everybody who came out today. It does suck to have that volume of people here and not be able to perform, but I really think that getting that many people in one gym to watch women's sports is huge, and it just goes to show the love and dedication that they show to us here.
But I think we're a fun team to watch. I think people are picking up on that and I think it's drawing more eyes to the sport. Obviously Caitlin is a phenomenal player and that brings it, too. But people come a lot of times for Caitlin's name and they stay because we're so fun to watch as a collective unit. I'm just so proud of what we're doing here, and the story is not over for us.
CAITLIN CLARK: Yeah, I think Monika basically said it all. Obviously a wonderful opportunity for a women's basketball game today on ABC in front of a sold-out crowd. I just feel bad for the fans because they've given us so much over these past two weeks, really willed us to a regular season title here at home versus Michigan, and I hope they come out and support us the exact same way next year. I know they will.
I think there's a lot of exciting basketball ahead for this group, but obviously the feeling of letting them down, letting the coaches down, our teammates down, it stinks right now, but I think overall just more fuel for us going into next year.
Q. A question about rebounding. There were a lot of times Creighton went in and tipped it out to one of their teammates. How hard is that to try to simulate when you're getting ready for this game? They rebound really well as a team, but it wasn't just one person that was doing all the damage.
CAITLIN CLARK: Yeah, I think it is hard to simulate. Obviously you only have one day to prep so you can't work on every single thing that they're going to do. Every team crashes. I think that's the story for every team. It's not like they just go and run back every single time they shoot it. I think like Monika said, it was a lot of long rebounds so I think that led to the tip-out to their teammates, and that's probably something they work on every single day in practice. But at the end of the day, those are rebounds we can still get. I think finding somebody to box and just being better prepared in that area, having the mentality to go get the balls, more than anything.
Q. It felt like throughout the game you guys would get within a couple of points and then even when you took the lead, there were just shots that weren't falling that felt like they would be really big to not only cut the lead down or grow your lead. Did you think you were getting good shots? Did you feel like your offense was getting you good looks and they just weren't falling?
LISA BLUDER: That's a good question. I think we got some shots that we usually make, but I do think we started adjusting our shots a little bit based on -- we were getting really bumped hard, and so you just alter your shot a little bit. I don't think that boded well for us.
We could have done other things. We kept talking about we want a two-foot jump stop instead of a lay-up and those are things that we could do to help ourselves that we didn't do.
For the most part, we got shots that we normally get within our offense except for maybe some drives to the basket.
Q. You said the game was called differently than most here. Was it just called more loosely or inconsistently or what?
LISA BLUDER: There just wasn't many whistles. When you're used to having fouls called 34 times a game and it's 22 this time -- again, I don't mind if it's called -- but call it that way in November, call it that way in December, January, February. Don't come in March and change our style of officiating. That's what frustrates me.
Q. You guys had four-point leads a couple of times there at the very end of the game and then Lauren got through for a drive and then hit the three. Did you see anything on either one of those plays that maybe the defense just didn't quite pick up?
LISA BLUDER: Yeah, you know, the drive, I think they do such a good job of hitting threes, and they had eight threes in the first half. They only had two in the second half, one in each quarter. So we did a better job of guarding the three. But when you do a better job of guarding the three, what does that open up? Drives to the basket. And she exposed that very well.
Q. Going off of what was said earlier about the excitement and the thrills that you all generated this season and the attention that's been brought on to this team, what do you want people to know about this team given all the adversity and all the obstacles that you've all had to overcome this year to get to this point?
LISA BLUDER: I'm just really proud of this team. I mean, and the exciting thing is we return everybody from our starting lineup, and that's exciting. We have three great recruits coming in.
But I couldn't be more proud of this group. I love them. I can't believe I don't get to go to practice tomorrow. That's the hardest thing for me right now is that I don't get to go to practice tomorrow.
Q. What was your game plan going into those final three seconds, that final shot? Did you want to get it to Monika?
LISA BLUDER: We did. We wanted to get it to either Monika or Caitlin. Those were our two people we were trying to get the ball to.
Q. I know of course that you don't want to be on the losing end of an upset, but when we're trying to talk about growing the women's game, how much does it help to have not just upsets, but to touch on what Monika said, people came for Caitlin but they see so many other people who can play good basketball.
LISA BLUDER: I'm sorry, what was the question?
Q. Do you think this is good for the game, these type of upsets? Do you think parity is growing --
LISA BLUDER: Yes.
Q. I know you don't want to be on the crappy end of it.
LISA BLUDER: Thanks, I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, parity is good for anything, right? It's more exciting when there's parity. But you're right, you don't want to be on the wrong side of that.
But no, it's great for the game of women's basketball to have parity and to have upsets, and that creates excitement.

Women's Basketball Upsets #8 Iowa To Earn Trip to Sweet 16

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Team Stats

Lauren Jensen

Emma Ronsiek

Payton Brotzki

Morgan Maly

Players Mentioned

Payton Brotzki

Temi Carda

Lauren Jensen

Morgan Maly

Molly Mogensen

Tatum Rembao

Emma Ronsiek

Rachael Saunders

Players Mentioned

Payton Brotzki

Temi Carda

Lauren Jensen

Morgan Maly

Molly Mogensen

Tatum Rembao

Emma Ronsiek

Rachael Saunders