By: Jake Mosbach
The 2015-16 season certainly didn’t go the way the Iowa women’s basketball players had hoped.
On March 17 in Carver-Hawkeye, the disappointing season ended in the first round of the NIT.
Iowa (19-14 overall) fell to Ball State (22-9), 77-72, eliminating it in its 15th postseason appearance in the last 16 seasons.
Senior guard Nathalie Fontaine led the way for the Cardinals, collecting 24 points to go with 11 rebounds. Fontaine came into the game averaging 20.7 points.
Freshman forward Megan Gustafson led Hawkeye scorers with 22 and also hauled in 12 rebounds.
After the game, Hawkeye head coach Lisa Bluder credited a Ball State team that outmatched the Hawkeyes on the Hawks’ home floor.
“[Ball State] played a terrific first half,” Bluder said. “They shot the ball well in the first half and took control of this game early, and they kept it. Unfortunately, the second quarter just got away from us.”
The Cardinals dominated the first half of the game, leading Iowa, 40-28, at the end of two quarters (Ball State grabbed a 22-12 advantage in the second quarter). Even with the Hawks owning a 44-37 advantage in the second half, the hole was too big to escape.
Hawkeye junior guard Ally Disterhoft, who wound up with 19 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists, said the loss summed up how the season went for the team.
“For the most part, [the season] is not something we’ll look back on very fondly at,” she said. “We have talent on this team, and we didn’t show that this year. That’s very disappointing.”
Gustafson, who corralled her ninth double-double of the season and third-straight game with 20-plus points, reflected after the game on her freshman campaign. The Port Wing, Wisconsin, native poured it on late in the season, often leading the team in several statistical categories.
“[The season] been a little up-and-down for sure,” she said. “This year was a little bit frustrating, but I definitely learned a lot from the upperclassmen and the seniors.”
Early on in the third quarter, the game appeared to be headed the way of a blowout. A 16-point Cardinal lead looked insurmountable the way the first half had gone for Iowa.
But a 12-0 Hawkeye run put the team back in contention, and it even had a chance to tie or take the lead on a possession with 26 ticks left on the clock in the fourth quarter, down 72-70.
Iowa sophomore guard Whitney Jennings took a pull-up jumper from the right wing but left it short, all but ending the game.
Other scorers for the Hawks included Jennings (13 points), freshman guard Tania Davis (12), and sophomore forward Chase Coley, who came off the bench to score 6 points.
Ball State beat Iowa in almost every statistical category, not just on the scoreboard. The Cardinals shot 43 percent from the floor compared with Iowa’s 42.6 percent, shot 75 percent from the free-throw line versus Iowa’s 68.4 percent, and out-rebounded the Hawks, 41-39.
The Cardinals also won the turnover battle, losing the ball just 10 times compared with Iowa’s 12.
Ultimately, those stats are what stood out to Bluder at the end of the game.
“They really took it at us in almost every facet of the game,” Bluder said. “It’s hard to see this season come to an end, but it’s been a tough year, a frustrating year.”
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