Michigan
Caitlin Clark’s game-winning 3-pointer saves Iowa women’s basketball vs. Michigan State
Hear from Caitlin Clark, Lisa Bluder and Molly Davis after Iowa’s thrilling win over MSU
Hear from Caitlin Clark, Lisa Bluder and Molly Davis after Iowa’s thrilling win over Michigan State.
IOWA CITY — Those cloaked in Iowa gold wiggled and fidgeted as the scoreboard drama intensified, this sold-out affair unfolding much differently than expected. The long Big Ten slog tends to produce a few of these even for seasoned squads.
In swooped Caitlin Clark to make sure everyone rested easy.
Locked in a clunky offensive battle Tuesday with a Michigan State women’s basketball team trending upward, No. 4 Iowa had to quickly brush away any thoughts of a masterpiece and shift to finding an escape route. Unsurprisingly, it was Clark who located it — burying a logo trey at the horn to hand the Hawkeyes a 76-73 win at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
“Honestly,” Clark said, “when it left my hand, I knew it was going in.”
The immediate moments before Clark’s final act of an incredible 40-point night served as a microcosm of the Hawkeyes’ erratic offensive evening. With time running out and Clark hunting an opening that was hard to locate, this 73-73 affair seemed destined for overtime.
Hannah Stuelke, with her back to the basket at the top of the key, dished it over to Clark — who shook free from Michigan State’s Moira Joiner for just a second before hitting a stepback to the left and firing away on the 3-point shot.
The sweet swish and ensuing roar let everyone know the outcome.
Stuelke (15 points) was the only other Hawkeye to score in double figures. Kate Martin led Iowa with 11 rebounds. Clark added five assists and three steals.
“Those are situations we work on at the end of practice every single day,” said Clark, who finished 14-for-34 from the field and 8-for-20 from deep. “We ran a play to inbound the ball, got it cleanly. Molly (Davis) did set a clean pick on my girl, but Hannah’s defender was up guarding her pretty well.
“I think it kind of worked out in my favor because my girl almost went for a steal a little bit, and then I was able to get to my stepback to the left — which is the shot I want to get to.”
Concern quickly shifted to celebration with Clark’s magical heave, but little up to that point had unfolded smoothly for the Hawkeyes (14-1, 3-0 Big Ten Conference). Just as it was last season at the Breslin Center, Tuesday’s matchup featured a bunch of scrappy Spartans hunting a monumental upset. A roaring home crowd that easily brushed off an 8 p.m. weekday tip did little to derail Michigan State when the tense, late energy kicked in.
Clark’s trey with 2:32 left handed the Hawkeyes a 71-67 advantage and offered Michigan State a chance to bow out admirably. But the Spartans didn’t take it. Consecutive buckets brought Michigan State back even, and the same happened after DeeDee Hagemann countered Davis’ two free throws on a questionable 3-point shooting foul for a 73-73 tie.
SOCIAL MEDIA REACTION: What they’re saying about Caitlin Clark’s game-winning 3 for Iowa women’s basketball
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“I missed the first (free throw) on purpose so Caitlin could hit the game-winner,” Davis joked.
Clark’s heroics erased that error and several others, most notably a tough first half that saw Iowa muster only 10 second-quarter points en route to a 37-35 halftime deficit.
Iowa opened up a double-digit cushion late in the first quarter and led by nine with six minutes until the break, before sputtering into intermission with similar struggles seen at the start. After landing the opening blow with an 8-0 run to start the game, Michigan State closed the half with a 9-0 surge in the last four minutes.
This squad enduring one extended sputter like that is stunning enough; then came another one barging in early in the third quarter. The Hawkeyes finished six seconds short of a second four-minute scoring drought and spent the entire third period chasing until eight consecutive Clark points stabilized things a bit before the fourth.
“Ball movement, I thought we were very stagnant,” said Iowa coach Lisa Bluder, whose Hawkeyes finished 9-for-30 from deep and had almost as many turnovers (13) as assists (14). We didn’t pass the ball well, didn’t really reverse the ball. We didn’t get the ball into the paint and back out. To me, it was all ball movement.”
Having No. 22 on your side, though, can make everything right in the end.
Dargan Southard is a sports trending reporter and covers Iowa athletics for the Des Moines Register and HawkCentral.com. Email him at msouthard@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Dargan_Southard.
Two employees who refused to serve a man and his wife because he was wearing a hoodie with President Trump’s name on it were fired after a video of the heated encounter went viral.
Erika Lindemyer and her husband, Jake, were forced out of a Smoothie King franchise location in Ann Arbor, Michigan, following a fiery clash with two young female workers on Sunday.
The employees claimed they didn’t “feel comfortable” serving the couple because of Jake’s pro-Trump hoodie, as captured by Erika in a viral video.
Jake and Erika fired back at the pair and insisted that they were being “discriminated” against based on their “political views.”
“We were just wanting a smoothie and you literally looked at us and I asked you if everything was OK and you said ‘We don’t feel comfortable serving you’ because of my husband’s hoodie. That is discrimination,” Erika spat.
“Okay, well, have a great day,” the first employee said.
“That is illegal,” Erika tried to insist again.
“I said Trump discriminates [against] us,” another employee chimed in.
“Okay, well that has nothing to do with us getting a smoothie!” Erika guffawed.
“OK, well that’s who you support though, that’s who you love,” the first employee chided.
“What’s embarrassing is that we’re American citizens and I wanted to get a smoothie,” Erika huffed.
The second employee noted that they “have a right to refuse service” and directed the couple to the exit.
“You asked a question and [the other employee] gave you an answer. Have a great day. Have a great day. The door’s right there,” the second worker said.
Trump merchandise. Leftism/X
Erika threatened to call the police while storming out, but it’s unclear if she did.
In a separate video shared Monday, one of the workers joked that she might’ve “accidentally started a race war” and called on the public to help remove Erika’s video.
“I am a minor and she recorded me without my permission. The people in the comments are all white and they’re all being hella racist, guys, please help me get this video taken down,” she implored.
Smoothie King confirmed that the girls involved in the viral confrontation “are no longer with the business” as of Monday.
“As a brand, Smoothie King is committed to ensuring our stores are a place free of discrimination of any kind, where every guest and team member is treated with care and respect,” the company wrote on X.
The owner of the Ann Arbor franchise location will also enforce “mandatory retraining for all employees that outlines our guest experience standards.”
In early December, a woman who worked at a Target in California was berated by a customer for wearing a Charlie Kirk “Freedom” T-shirt.
When the employee insisted she was allowed to wear the red shirt, the irate customer accused her of supporting “a racist.”
The medical center where the agitated customer worked was bombarded with upwards of 6,000 “profanity-laced” phone calls after online sleuths doxxed her personal information.
Ann Arbor — The Wolverines won the outright Big Ten regular-season title with two games to go, but it came at a great cost.
L.J. Cason, Michigan’s backup point guard and a key piece of the rotation, tore his right ACL in the championship-clinching win at Illinois. Just like that, Cason’s season was over and Michigan was hit with a brutal blow.
But when adversity strikes, opportunity knocks. While the team won’t be the same without Cason, coach Dusty May believes Michigan has backcourt pieces who can step up and make up for the loss.
“This is a great opportunity for Roddy (Gayle Jr.), Trey (McKenney) and Nimari (Burnett) to play more, and those guys are really good players,” May said Monday. “Our rotation has been nine and nine, I think, is too deep. It’s playing too many guys, if you want to optimize everyone. But we felt like we had nine guys that deserved to play, that gave us a different element.
“We look at this as another challenge, but it’s also an opportunity for guys to play a little bit more, to play longer periods, to play through a mistake, to play a little bit different role. We do feel like these guys are a lot better than they were earlier this year, so we’re prepared to handle whatever comes at us.”
May said he doesn’t know exactly when Cason tore his ACL, and neither does Cason. The sophomore guard fell to the court and got up favoring his right leg on two separate occasions against Illinois.
The first instance came in the final minute of the first half, when Cason tipped a long rebound ahead and chased it down to start a fast break. After he grabbed the ball in the air and bounced it backward between his legs to a trailing teammate, Cason went down. He got up hobbling, was subbed out and went back to the locker room.
Cason briefly checked back in during the second half and scored a driving layup a minute into his shift. But on Michigan’s next possession, he fell down after trying to score through contact and got up limping again. Shortly after that, Cason motioned to the Michigan bench to be taken out of the game and he exited for good.
“At halftime, the training staff came and said basically he’s passed all of his jump test. He just did the bike. He says he’s 100% ready to go. I was surprised, because I was expecting him to be out,” May said. “I said, ‘What about the test?’ They said both of his knees are loose, so it’s hard. We don’t feel that anything is torn.
“He comes back in. He lands funny again. … It’s unfortunate for him because he was playing so well. When an ACL pops on a noncontact injury, you’re like, ‘Man, what could we have done different?’ When it happens on a funny, quirky play, usually those are the ones that aren’t preventable.”
May added it hasn’t been determined yet when Cason will undergo surgery. Given the typical recovery timeline for a torn ACL ranges anywhere from nine to 12 months, May said Cason redshirting next season is a possibility that’s “on the table.”
“That’s certainly been discussed as well, and then that impacts the recruiting decision-making,” May said. “But right now, we’re still trying to figure out when he’s going to have it. What’s the timeline? Does it make sense to go ahead and sit out next year? … We haven’t made any definitive decisions, because all the information is so inconclusive.”
Moving forward, the plan isn’t to have just one guy replace Cason, who averaged 8.4 points and 2.4 assists in 18.6 minutes per game, shot 40.2% from 3-point range and served as a facilitator when starting point guard Elliot Cadeau wasn’t on the court. It’ll be a by-committee approach.
That said, Cason’s absence is certainly going to put much more on Cadeau’s shoulders. The Wolverines can ill afford to have Cadeau commit unnecessary fouls and miss long stretches at a time. Without Cason, Cadeau is the one guard who can break down opposing defenses off the dribble and create for others.
“This will force Elliot to be much more solid with his defensive decision-making when it comes to fouling,” May said. “He doesn’t have that insurance policy anymore named L.J. behind him, because L.J. came in and carried the load several games for our group. That’s not there anymore.”
While Burnett, Gayle and McKenney haven’t had to be facilitators in their roles this season, May expressed confidence all three can take on minutes with the ball in their hands and initiate the offense.
Even beyond the guards, May noted the team has “other capable weapons” who can serve as triggers on offense depending on the matchup, like forwards Yaxel Lendeborg and Morez Johnson Jr. and big man Aday Mara.
Add it all together, May feels the Wolverines can find a way to absorb the blow, fill the void and forge ahead with Cason sidelined.
“We have enough to overcome what L.J. brought to the team,” May said. “I don’t know if he’s the best backup point guard in the country, but I can’t think of one that’s better. We’re losing a lot, but once again, we’re not going to sit here and look at it from that angle.
“This is an opportunity for all these other guys to do a little bit more, and they’re more than capable. It’s on us to find the right rotations and situations. Without a doubt, we have a lot of confidence in our roster.”
jhawkins@detroitnews.com
@jamesbhawkins
The Michigan State Police is looking for the driver of a Jeep that the agency said hit one of its patrol cars on Lodge Freeway in Detroit Sunday night.
According to officials, the incident happened at 7:50 p.m. on the northbound side of the freeway near Shaefer Highway. The agency said a trooper was investigating a crash and had the patrol car parked on the right shoulder of the freeway with its emergency lights on when it was rear-ended by the Jeep.
“The impact forced the patrol car to strike the concrete wall on the right shoulder,” according to the agency.
The Jeep then went across three lanes of the freeway and hit a median wall, officials said. The driver, identified by law enforcement as a 29-year-old Detroit woman, left the vehicle and fled the scene.
Michigan State Police First Lieutenant Mike Shaw said that while the trooper was evaluated and cleared at the scene by medical personnel, he was still taken to the hospital as a precaution.
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