Hawkeyes fall to No. 13 Seminoles, ending perfect start

The No. 13 Florida State Seminoles ended Iowa’s perfect start to the season on Wednesday night, beating the Hawkeyes 94-93.

Iowa entered the fourth quarter up 12 points, but surrendered the lead in a back-and-forth final stanza of play. The Hawkeyes had 21 turnovers, which the Seminoles turned into 26 points.

Florida State went on an 11-0 run midway through the fourth, which helped Shakayla Thomas (31 points, 10 boards) bury Iowa. In fact, Thomas had all 11 of those points during that run.

Megan Gustafson had 34 points on 15-of-18 shooting and tacked on nine rebounds as well. She’s as an unguardable player in the post as anyone in the NCAA right now and we’re lucky to be witnessing the true blossoming of one of the best players Lisa Bluder has ever coached.

Her numbers are simply incredible. 70.5-percent from the field. 80.6-percent from the free-throw line. 22.9 points per game. 12.9 rebounds per game.

That’s greatness.

Anyways, in the grand scheme of things this certainly isn’t the end of the world for Iowa. In the last AP poll they were pulling votes, coming in 30th. The Coaches Poll has them at 28th.

"I hope they feel they gained confidence," Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder said to Hawkeye Sports. "We led the No. 13 team for almost 31 minutes. I hope they gain confidence that they can play with anybody in the country. Florida State has five senior starters. They're an experienced team and we played them to the end.

Iowa blazed through the Puerto Rico Classic last week, beating Charlotte 77-64 and Elon 74-61 in the final two rounds of the tournament after beating Morgan State 90-64 in the opener.

Iowa has two games this week — Samford on Sunday and then Iowa State on Wednesday.

It should be favored in both games.

Hawkeyes shut out of NCAA volleyball tournament

Despite having an RPI of 50, Iowa wasn’t invited to the 68-team NCAA tournament.

The Hawkeyes dropped three of their final four matches of the season and were swept in the final two.

The Big Ten is as tough of a conference as any, and it’s simply hard to pick up wins. Iowa finishes the year 18-15 (7-13 B1G).

Three Hawkeyes were named honorable mention Big Ten: Jess Janota, Annika Olsen, and Taylor Louis.

Iowa returns a good portion of its team next year and while things might not have panned out quite the way they wanted to... there was certainly some more progress this season. Bond Shymansky is doing some real, real good stuff.