Caitlin Clark’s game-winning 3-pointer saves Iowa women’s basketball vs. 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.

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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.