A new Nebraska women’s basketball home crowd record saw Nebraska hold their own against No. 7 Iowa for a time, but ultimately the best player in the country propelled the visitors to a victory.
Iowa pulled away in the second half to leave Lincoln with an 80-60 victory. The loss drops Nebraska to 14-13 on the season and 6-10 in the Big Ten Conference.
Nebraska, with plenty of Iowa fans on hand to help, put together a Pinnacle Bank Arena record-crowd for a Husker women’s basketball game with 14,289 in attendance.
The Hawkeyes jumped out early, scoring the first seven points. That would be the difference between the two teams after the first quarter.
The second period was the best frame for Nebraska on the day. Alexis Markowski put together her own 7-2 run. Three minutes later, Issie Bourne hit a 3 to tie the game at 31.
More than two minutes of neither team scoring was broken by a Caitlin Clark jumper. Iowa would not relinquish the lead for the rest of the game.
The Hawkeyes stretched their lead to 15 in the third quarter then to as much as 29 in the fourth quarter. After a 17-0 Iowa run, Jaz Shelley and Maddie Krull combined for a 9-0 run, but it was too little, too late.
Shelley led Nebraska with 19 points, adding nine rebounds and four assists. Markowski had 15 points and nine boards. Bourne added 12 points.
Clark dropped 30 points to go with eight assists and five rebounds. Monika Czinano chipped in 20 points.
Nebraska shot 34.4 percent for the game, including 7-of-33 on 3s. Iowa went 54.2 percent from the field, knocking down 10-of-20 triples.
Nebraska heads to Illinois Wednesday before closing out the regular season at home against Northwestern next weekend.