Game Time League action concluded Wednesday, and there are plenty of takeaways.
By Blake Dowson
To put it frankly, final scores during the Game Time League do not matter. Not only do they not matter to the Iowa women’s basketball players competing in the summer league, they literally do not matter — there are no playoffs, so team records stand solely for bragging rights.
The games are meant for incoming freshmen to get their feet wet and for the rest of the Iowa roster to shake some cobwebs off during the hottest months of the year.
That being said, there are takeaways from the league each summer, and fans in attendance can start to see what players will make the biggest impact this winter, what style of play the women might thrive in, and other points of emphasis.
Here are five things we learned about the Iowa women’s basketball team during Game Time League play.
Chase Coley is ready to score in bunches: The junior from Minneapolis was arguably the most dominant player in the league. It wasn’t just that she scored the ball a lot — often, the best athletes are able to bully their way to a lot of points. That wasn’t the case with Coley. She showed good footwork around the basket and a really soft shooting touch from 10-feet and in.
She also showed the ability to score with her left hand, often times with a left-handed hook shot moving through the lane. She also stepped out to the 3-point line a number of times.
If she continues to score with ease, and in a variety of ways, during the season, she will push the team to a whole other level.
Getting Kathleen Doyle could be special: It’s early to making definitive judgments on incoming freshmen, but Doyle looks like she could be a special player. And if she turns out to be special, the story of how she ended up at Iowa could be something of lore.
She originally committed to play at Nebraska, but after a coaching change occurred in Lincoln, Doyle pulled her commitment and reopened her recruitment. Iowa got into the game, and Doyle made a very late commitment to head coach Lisa Bluder.
She is a physically mature point guard who looks to score. She doesn’t have the eye to assist like Sam Logic did, but she seems to have the same killer instinct as Logic.
There is plenty of lineup flexibility: This might be the most exciting part about this team. They can practically run out any sort of lineup and feel comfortable with it.
The starting lineup will more than likely be big, with Megan Gustafson, Coley, Ally Disterhoft, and two guards.
But Bluder could run out a lineup with Coley at the 5 and four guards surrounding her if she wants to run.
She could put Hannah Stewart or Carly Mohns at the 5 and run a five-out set, maximizing the athletic ability of the team.
If she wants to completely blitz teams, she could surround Disterhoft with Tania Davis, Doyle, Christina Buttenham, and Bre Cera for an ultra-quick pressing, trapping defense.
There are a lot of possibilities.
Iowa could press more than in the past: As mentioned above, the Hawkeyes will have the ability to go small and press. Recruiting four players that can handle the point will allow you to do that.
Bluder has a ton of bodies to put on the floor at the guard position, and pressing — with the ability to substitute more often — may be intriguing.
Davis, Doyle, Buttenham, Cera, Makenzie Meyer, Alexis Sevillian, and Alexa Kastanek can all play the point and play the front of a press. That gives the team of lot of flexibility to press the issue.
This team will play with a chip on its shoulder: The Hawkeyes have had a lot of success in the past nine years. There have been eight NCAA Tournament appearances in those nine years.
But last season ended with Iowa getting bounced from the NIT in the first round by a ho-hum Ball State team on its home floor.
Talk of making right what went wrong a season ago has already made its way into conversation for the women this summer.
It revolves around team chemistry, something that was apparently lacking in 2015.
Also, Disterhoft has a very legitimate shot at ending her Iowa career this season as the all-time leading scorer in school history, and will land somewhere in the top 10 in rebounds as well.
She seems determined to have her final game be during the NCAA Tournament.
