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UNIVERSITY OF IOWA BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 21, 2016

Lisa Bluder

Iowa City, Iowa

Indiana - 73, Iowa - 76

COACH BLUDER: First of all, I want to thank the crowd that we had on hand here today. We had almost 10,000 people come out to support us. Really appreciate that. We needed every one of them, so we are very, very thankful for their support.

We had five people in double figures, I love the balance of our team with that. We did a great job with that. After a really tough start to this game, I think we played one of the best second quarters maybe of the year.

I thought our second quarter was outstanding and we needed every bit of that, because obviously Indiana fought back in that game. So good win for us. Feels good to redeem ourselves after losing at their place, and now we move on to Penn State.

Q. Especially with this opponent, the seventh free throw --
COACH BLUDER: Played a lot of zone but seven free throws was really key. We wanted to keep them off the free throw line. We felt like they are so good at getting to the free throw line, so making sure we keep them off the free throw line was important.

Q. At the end, any thoughts to fouling?
COACH BLUDER: They are so good at the free throw line. But at the same time, you've got to miss that one, and maybe they don't know how to miss. So that's always the debate and usually we do go down that route.

I didn't get that call on the timeout well enough. We talked about what we wanted to do. I didn't talk about what we want to do in the last five seconds of that game. I don't believe in doing it until then, until about the five-second mark, making the intentional foul and sending them to the free throw line for two shots. But it's something that I should have called a timeout and I didn't.

Q. What was kind of the message to the team when you guys took that initial flurry from them at the beginning of the game, what allowed them to settling down and chip away and get a substantial lead?
COACH BLUDER: Basically the message was: That was an all of minute and a half. The good news is, we have 38 and a half minutes that we can change things. It was just really more of a, let's get this together and we can change this, and let's not let it keep rolling.

Q. What type of an advantage is it having Chase and Megan out there on the floor at the same time in it really seems to cause teams problems.
COACH BLUDER: I think it's really hard for teams to have two post defenders. Most teams have one good post defender. One of them is usually a player that would rather be on the outside. It gives us an advantage that we can be able to post either one of them up, but also it helps us in the rebounds a little bit.

Q. Obviously last time you played Indiana, you guys let one get away. What does it say to you about your team and the growth that they have made when you guys are able to finish a game against that same opponent, knowing that every win is crucial at this point?
COACH BLUDER: Yeah, there's some pressure on. So you're really happy when your team responds to that pressure. Just don't want their minds wandering, have we been here before, that sort of thing.

So you talk about everything but that. You just try not to let them go there. Because if you start thinking about it, what happened last time, probably going to get a repeat performance.

I thought Tania just did a great job of leading us today. I thought her game was exceptional, and she made some key baskets for us on blocks going down. She also had a great push in transition right when we needed it in the first half to kind of get us going. I thought she had a really nice game.

Ally got us going early with two threes, too. That was nice to see.

Q. You mentioned Thursday, doing a little dancing in the locker room. What was the mood like tonight?
COACH BLUDER: Thursday you had dancing? If you call that dancing, I don't know -- (laughter). Trying to get me to dance -- we actually did a routine together one time. We're the dancing sisters, right? (Laughing).

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