By Susan Harman

IOWA CITY, Iowa – The fourth-ranked Iowa women’s basketball team travels to Bloomington, Ind., Thursday for what is a must-win if the Hawkeyes hope to win the Big Ten regular-season title. Of course, realistically, these last four games are all must-win situations because Ohio State has separated itself with its 13-1 record.

Indiana (21-4, 12-3) and Iowa (23-3, 12-2) remain the challengers. The Buckeyes play at Penn State (7-8) Thursday and have Maryland (7-7) and Michigan (7-8) at home before coming to Iowa for the final regular-season game. The second-ranked Buckeyes will be prohibitive favorites in their first three games with the Iowa game a toss-up.

“I think the trick is to make sure everybody’s on the same page,” Iowa associate head coach Jan Jensen said. “They know what’s at stake, but also that’s not the total focal point. They’re also a pretty mature team. They don’t have to be hit over the head with it. We just need to continue honing and building the confidence and mental fortitude to go over there and handle their tremendous home-court advantage.”

Last January in the midst of the winter’s biggest snowstorm, terrible road conditions and sub-zero temperatures Iowa had a near full house when it defeated the Hoosiers 84-57. The score looks like a blowout, but for most of the game it was not.

This was the Molly Davis game. She scored her Iowa high of 18 points, shooting 7-10, had two assists, a steal and three rebounds. She was everywhere in the second quarter as Iowa scratched and clawed to build a lead.

She earned the grudging respect of IU coach Teri Moren, who said: ““You know (Caitlin Clark) is going to get her average, but you don’t want to let those other guys have big nights, and unfortunately we let too many of them have their way with us. (Clark) goes out because she gets those two fouls, and then it’s Molly Davis takes over the game, and you’re like, that shouldn’t happen, right? But give her credit. She took advantage of the opportunity.”

Gabbie Marshall made four 3-pointers, Clark finished with 30 points and Kate Martin with 10. But as good as Iowa’s offense was in spurts, it was the defense that was the key.

The Hoosiers have not lost at home this season. Its four losses: at Stanford, at Ohio State, at Iowa and at Illinois on Monday. In fact the Hoosiers haven’t lost two games in a row since February 2022.

The common denominator in those four losses was Indiana’s poorer-than-normal 3-point shooting. Indiana was held to 64 points at Stanford, 57 at Iowa, 69 at Ohio State and 66 at Illinois. In those games the Hoosiers, who are shooting 43 percent behind the arc in Big Ten play, shot a combined 22-of-88 from 3-point range. That’s 25 percent.

Iowa held Indiana to that exact percentage, as the Hoosiers made only 5-of-20 threes. They are coming off a game at Illinois when they made 6-of-20 threes (.300). This is a team with Sara Scalia (.398), Sydney Parrish (.500), Chloe Moore-McNeil (.467) and Yarden Garzon (.451) all killing it from behind the arc in the Big Ten. So the task for Iowa’s perimeter defenders is tough, but the Hawkeyes will try to come up with a similar effort on defense to give themselves a chance.

“The numbers will tell you when they score low percentages on that three ball it’s not in their favor,” Jensen said. “So we do need to pay special attention to that.”

None of that is to ignore All American Mackenzie Holmes in the post. Holmes averages 22.5 points in Big Ten play. Iowa held her to 13 the last time using double teams and a lot of help.

“That’s what people have been trying to figure out,” Jensen said. “Sometimes you can bring doubles and triples on Holmes, and then you’re going to let her pass out of that and they get an easy layup or you let her get hers and try to defend the 3-point line. But regardless of how many times they slap on the double during a game, what’s consistent is when they’re hot from that 3-point line it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing other places.”

Moren was extremely disappointed with her team’s performance at Illinois in a shocking 86-66 loss.

“We have to flush it,” she said. “We’re going to be much better on Thursday.”

“They’re coming in hot after a disappointing performance at Illinois,” Jensen said. “They want to play for pride, and there’s a lot that can happen.”

The game is at 7 p.m. Thursday and is available on Peacock and the Iowa radio network.