Five Storylines: No. 2 Ohio State women’s basketball at No. 6 Iowa

Sunday afternoon, Ohio State women’s basketball and the Iowa Hawkeyes renew a reinvigorated rivalry in Iowa City. For the first time in two years, the Scarlet and Gray and Black and Gold battle at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

While the implications of the game, competitively, aren’t too high, there are plenty of storylines both on and off the court that makes the game potentially one of the most watched women’s college basketball games of the season.

Here are five storylines to watch.

What’s On The Line

Wednesday night, Ohio State women’s basketball locked up its 16th conference title, and won it outright. That means the Hawkeyes, who were in the three-team fight for the trophy, walk away from the regular season with nothing to add to its trophy cabinet. The title is added to the Buckeyes’ No. 1 Big Ten Tournament seed.

That gives the appearance of Sunday’s game not mattering, but not necessarily. There is still NCAA Tournament seeding on the line. Right now, Ohio State and Iowa sit at No. 3 and No. 5 in the NCAA Tournament committee’s top-16, released this week.

A win and the Scarlet and Gray keep its No. 1 tournament seed. Lose and it might mean a drop to a No. 2 seed, depending on how close or far away the final score is for the visiting Buckeyes. As long as Ohio State doesn’t fall below a No. 4 seed, the first two rounds of the tournament will go through Columbus, Ohio.

Outside of losing to Iowa by a wide margin, and an early exit in the conference tournament, it’s unlikely that Ohio State drops to a No. 5 seed before the March Madness field goes public on March 17. However, the higher the seed, the easier the road to the team’s first Final Four since 1993.

Iowa’s Senior Day

While there’s no title getting lifted Sunday afternoon in Carver-Hawkeye Arena, there is a celebration in the works for Iowa seniors, including one Caitlin Clark. On Thursday, the guard announced she’s leaving Iowa at the end of the season, ready to declare for the WNBA Draft.

With Clark playing her final regular season game in Iowa City, although hosting NCAA Tournament games is likely, it’ll turn an already rowdy Iowa crowd up a few levels. There’s also another record on the line for Clark: the all-time NCAA Division I point scoring record, currently held by former LSU Tiger Pete Maravich.

All Clark needs is 18 points to break the record, which shouldn’t take the guard too long to obtain. The guard hasn’t scored less than 18 points in a game since Feb. 12, 2023, and that was 15 points in 21 minutes. So, the late Maravich’s record is done, it’s just a matter of time.

Full Strength Teams

On Jan. 21, when the Buckeyes defeated the Hawkeyes 100-92, it was the game of the conference this season. Which is something considering who was missing for a lot of the game.

In Columbus, foul troubles hampered both teams. Iowa lost leadership in guard Kate Martin and Clark’s favorite outlet in forward Hannah Stuelke to early foul issues. For the Buckeyes, it was guard Celeste Taylor and guard/forward Taylor Thierry, the two players head coach Kevin McGuff planned to have on Clark defensively.

That meant both teams had to adjust, but if the stars for each team can stay on the court, it’ll make a proper matchup between the No. 2 Buckeyes and No. 6 Hawkeyes.

Taylor leads the Big Ten in steals, steals per game and defensive rating. Thierry is right behind Taylor in defensive rating, sitting at No. 2. Having both on the court for closer to 40 minutes could mean a slightly more difficult day for Clark.

Repeating Recent History

Beating the Hawkeyes in Carver Arena isn’t impossible. Iowa’s lone loss in Iowa City came at the hands of Kansas State, a team that the Hawkeyes can’t seem to beat after they’ve had Iowa’s number the past two seasons.

In Big Ten play though, the Black and Gold haven’t slipped up. Ohio State has experience defeating the Hawkeyes away from the Schottenstein Center. It happened two years ago.

During the 2021/22 season, when the Buckeyes seemingly won every game except for those where the opposing team had a dominant player in the paint, Ohio State shocked Clark, forward Monika Czinano and the Hawkeyes. The Scarlet and Gray did it through shooting.

The 92-88 victory for the Buckeyes, on Jan. 31, 2022, featured a lot of the same work done this January. Ohio State hit 11 three-pointers, with forward Rebeka Mikulášiková hitting five by herself. The two-point attempts also fell at a high clip, hitting 61.4% from the field.

Ohio State held all starters except Clark and Czinano to under eight points scored apiece. The win locked up a piece of the Big Ten regular season title for the Buckeyes, ending up sharing with Iowa.

If Ohio State can neutralize the supporting cast around Clark, and make life difficult for the superstar, it could be recent history repeating itself.

Historic Rivalry

Before Jacy Sheldon and Caitlin Clark, there was Katie Smith and Toni Foster. Big Ten women’s basketball, and women’s college basketball overall, was far removed from today’s current levels of attention. Talk to fans of the game who’ve been around for decades, and there were seasons where Buckeyes games were aired to watch at home maybe twice a season.

In that generation of Big Ten basketball, before more schools started caring about their women’s programs, the teams battling at the top were Ohio State and Iowa. While historically the Buckeyes have dominated fellow original Big Ten teams like Indiana (58-26) and the Michigan Wolverines (60-17), the Buckeyes and Hawkeyes have a close 39-36 series record.

Look at the first 10 years of the conference, and nine seasons ended with either the Buckeyes or Hawkeyes winning the regular season championship — three times both teams sharing the crown. In 1993, the two teams played in the Final Four, with Ohio State edging the Hawkeyes in overtime.

So, a rivalry between the Scarlet and Gray and Black and Gold is nothing new, and predates any kind of rivalry with the usual suspects from up north in Ann Arbor. Even though more eyes, and new eyes, are looking at the Iowa and Ohio State matchup, it stands on a firm foundation.

Sunday is another chapter in one of the longest history books in conference history.