Senior center puts up 24 second-half points to lead team
KCJJ Staff
02/17/19
For one quarter, it seemed #7 Maryland had dammed the river that is Iowa senior Megan Gustafson. For one half, they kept the leaks to a minimum. But in the end, she still broke through, leading #14 Iowa past the Terrapins 86-73 on Sunday.
“We’re always looking, always hunting for Megan, right, why not?” head coach Lisa Bluder asked rhetorically. “They did a great job of defending her, but she will wear teams down. And eventually she’ll get open. They’ll foul out because you can’t really guard her. They bring two people at her.
“She’s so strong. She’s in great shape. She will just wear people out inside eventually.”
Bluder had nothing but praise for Gustafson after she recovered from a two-point first quarter and seven-point first half to lead the way with 31 points and 17 rebounds.
She was one of four players scoring in double figures for Iowa, who now shares first place in the Big Ten with Maryland but owns the tiebreaker with only three games left.
“They were just throwing extra bodies on me and, you know, that usually happens,” Gustafson said with a chuckle. “But they were doing a little bit of box-and-one and just doing extra things like that. But when that happens, I’m able to try to figure out what else I can do to impact the game, whether that’s getting my teammates open, being a decoy. I don’t mind doing that at all. Getting my teammates open shots and drawing the defense away from them.
“I just have to credit my teammates for hitting those shots in the first half. I have 100 percent confidence in them and that’s why our team is so good right now.”
The win marks the first for Iowa against Maryland since they joined the Big Ten in 2014, snapping a six-game losing streak.
Iowa, now 21-5 overall and 12-3 in the Big Ten, returns to the court on Thursday at Indiana.