With leading scorer Jaime Printy on the shelf the rest of the season, the Iowa women's basketball team is going to need big performances from unexpected sources the rest of the way if it wants to return to the NCAA Tournament for a fifth straight season.
Sunday, that is exactly what happened.
The Hawkeyes got big performances from three true freshmen as the team pulled away from Indiana in Bloomington, 83-64. Iowa lead by just four at the break.
Freshman Melissa Dixon made her first career start in place of Printy and played like the All-American she was replacing. She finished with a season-high 19 points and three steals. She also had season-highs in field goals made with seven, 3-pointers made with five and minutes played with 28.
The other two freshmen are Sam Logic and Bethany Doolittle. Logic, a high school All-American from Wisconsin, finished with just five points and took just four shots from the floor but added seven rebounds and six assists. Doolittle put in eight points and four rebounds to lead Iowa's bench.
The Usual Suspects were still performing, too, for Iowa (14-10).
Senior guard Kamille Wahlin put in a game-high 22 points and added six assists and four boards, while junior center Morgan Johnson scored 12 points and had three blocks. Senior forward Kelly Krei also reached double figures with 10 points and also had five steals and four rebounds.
The Hawkeyes led by just four at the break despite 13 points from Dixon. She was 5-of-10 in the game from long range and 7-of-12 from the floor. Iowa shot 51 percent from the field in the game and had a season-low eight turnovers.
Iowa, which is now 6-5 in league play, canned 10 triples in the game and scored 28 points off 20 Indiana turnovers.
The Hoosiers did manage to dominate Iowa on the boards, out-rebounding the Hawkeyes, 49-30, with 20 of those rebounds coming on the offensive end. Sasha Chaplin scored 20 points and had eight rebounds to lead Indiana, which fell to 5-19 overall and 0-11 in league play.
Jasmine McGhee also reached double-figures for Indiana, finishing with 14 points and eight rebounds.
Iowa led by as many as eight points in the first half but was up just 35-31 at halftime. The lead was still four two minutes into the second half. However, the Hawkeyes used a 16-7 run and a 12-4 spurt to pull away. The lead grew to as many as 20 before the final horn saw Iowa win by 19.
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