By Tyler Devine

IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa women’s basketball team left little doubt that it deserved a Sweet 16 appearance on Sunday.

The Hawkeyes held No. 7 seed Missouri to its second lowest point total of the season and cruised to a 68-52 win in front of a raucous crowd of 12,376 on Sunday.

The Hawkeyes improved to 18-0 on the season when playing in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Iowa also advanced to the Sweet 16 for the second time under head coach Lisa Bluder.

In addition to advancing in the NCAA Tournament, Iowa received a commitment from Cedar Rapids Washington freshman Hannah Stuelke during the postgame festivities.

“I'm just thrilled that we have another week,” Bluder said. “I get another week with this group. I get another week to go to battle with these guys, and I'm very, very happy about that.”

Iowa used stout defense to hold Missouri senior guard Sophie Cunningham, who averages 18 points and is the Tigers’ all-time leading scorer, to just eight points on 3-for-11 shooting.

The eight points were the second lowest total of the season for Cunningham, who was held to single digit scoring just six times.

Another sign of Iowa’s effectiveness on defense is that it only has allowed its two tournament opponents to shoot two free throws.

On the other side, Iowa was able to get Cunningham into foul trouble early

Cunningham picked up her third foul late in the first half and sat for the rest of the half having scored just six points.

She didn’t score again until 4:48 left in the game, but by that time Iowa had already pulled ahead by 15.

“Yeah, a great way to play defense on a great scorer like her is to have her not play, so that worked out for us,” Junior guard Kathleen Doyle said. “But like I said, she's an awesome player, and that just, yeah, like I said worked out in our favor that she got into some foul trouble, and we took advantage of it.”

As usual, Iowa was led by senior center Megan Gustafson, who scored 24 points and pulled down 19 rebounds.

Doyle added 15 points and junior guard Makenzie Meyer continued her hot streak, scoring 18 points on 6-for-9 shooting.

Iowa led 33-29 at halftime thanks in large part to hot shooting from Meyer and Gustafson who combined for 25 of Iowa’s first half points.

The Hawkeyes then used a 15-2 run to begin the fourth quarter, jumpstarted by a three pointer by senior guard Tania Davis, which pushed Iowa’s lead to 50-41.

The 5-foot-9 Meyer then hit a three pointer with 7:42 left in the fourth quarter that gave Iowa its largest lead to that point at 54-41.

“Yeah, we got pretty excited,” Bluder said. “They went to a zone defense coming out, and then Tania hits one in the corner and then Makenzie turns around and hits one in the other corner, and all of a sudden now they have to change their defense again.

“That's exactly what you want to have happen when somebody switches their defense is you just take advantage of it and open up with those threes.”

The 6-foot-3 Gustafson broke yet another record on Sunday in her final game in Iowa City.

Gustafson needed just one quarter to break the Big Ten career rebounds record set by Jantel Lavender of Ohio State from 2008-11.

Gustafson had previously broken the single season records for points and rebounds in Big Ten history against Mercer on Friday.

“On social media I’ll see stuff like I’m close to a record,” Gustafson said. “I don’t really pay attention to them until I see them on Twitter. I can’t do anything of the record breaking without my teammates. They’re the ones passing me the ball at the end of the day, so I just have to thank them.

“The records don’t mean that much to me. I just really want to focus on the team but, again, I’m very honored to work so hard to get those records.”

Iowa will face the winner of No. 3 seed North Carolina State and No. 6 seed Kentucky on March 29 or 30.