Leistikow: 5 thoughts ahead of Iowa's NCAA Tournament matchup against West Virginia

IOWA CITY − The last two years of second-round NCAA Tournament games at Carver-Hawkeye Arena have produced extremely challenging circumstances for the Iowa women’s basketball team.

On the surface, a third in a row should be expected in Caitlin Clark’s final college home game.

Eighth-seeded West Virginia (25-7) brings a confident mentality and ball-hawking defense into Monday’s 7 p.m., ESPN-televised matchup against Iowa (30-4), with a berth in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 on the line.

“We just all have fun on the defensive end. It’s something we like to do,” West Virginia’s Lauren Fields said. “We feed off each other when we’re getting steals.”

Iowa is the top seed in the Albany 2 region and would face fifth-seeded Colorado next Saturday with a win. But the Hawkeyes are likely to be without Molly Davis, their second-best ball handler, for a fifth straight game after she injured her right knee against Ohio State on March 3. That could prove to be a notable absence. Sydney Affolter has done a terrific job handling Davis’ starting role, but she is more of a small forward. That puts more responsibility on Clark’s shoulders to handle West Virginia’s constant full-court pressure defense.

“If Molly can’t go, we’ve just got to hope that everybody keeps composed and doesn’t get in foul trouble,” Iowa associate head coach Jan Jensen said, referring in part to Clark showing ample frustration in Saturday's 91-65 opening win against Holy Cross. “I think Caitlin's up for the challenge. She's got a lot of pressure. She’ll admit that (Saturday) was not a great night for that.”

Clark knows the West Virginia press will be Iowa’s biggest challenge Monday.

“The biggest thing is getting stops defensively so they can’t set up their press,” Clark said.

The Mountaineers pack the best scoring defense that Iowa has seen all season, at 57.6 points per game. They are No. 1 nationally in turnover margin, at plus-8.5 per game. They are second in the country in steals, with 13.8 per game.

West Virginia’s top four scorers all have at least 76 steals this season. Iowa has only one player with 40-plus (Clark, with 61).

West Virginia guard Jordan Harrison said stopping Clark includes “staying on her hip, playing aggressive, being there on her every catch.”

Big 12 defensive player of the year JJ Quinerly said the goal with Clark is “just keeping her to her weaknesses. At the end of the day, she’s going to get her points. We know that. You’ve just got to keep the other players at bay.”

Iowa’s second-round NCAA Tournament history is well-known by now. A two-point home loss to No. 10 seed Creighton still stings, two years later. Last year’s 74-66 win against No. 10 seed Georgia came down to Clark hitting a clutch shot in a tense final minute. The Hawkeyes were early 16½-point favorites but they know they have to be wary against a pressure team like West Virginia, which can wreak havoc.

“I think if we're locked in on the press, we'll be OK and they’ll end up having to take it off,” Affolter said. “But teams that press can smell blood. If you (show) fear, they’ll come after you. We’re all confident in breaking the press.”

'On the 'let’s send Caitlin Clark packing’ comments

You’ve probably seen the documentary clip or at least the meme of Michael Jordan reflecting on slights during his final run with the 1998 Chicago Bulls and him saying, “That’s all I needed. ... And it became personal for me.”

Clark’s personal fire and competitiveness have been compared with Jordan’s and for good reason. More and more people are getting a window into that side of her as her star grows.

So, even though West Virginia coach Mark Kellogg has explained away his comments after the NCAA Tournament bracket came out – when he said to his team and those gathered, “Let’s send Caitlin Clark packing" – there’s a good chance she’s taken those comments personally and added them to her fuel tank.

Kellogg has said he has received hate e-mail from purported Iowa supporters after the comments. After West Virginia’s first-round win Saturday against Princeton, Kellogg pointed out that the snippet started with murmurs about the Mountaineers being seeded No. 8 after a 24-7 season: “That wasn’t the intent. I’m not a trash-talking – I wasn’t out to get Caitlin Clark. It’s not Mark Kellogg vs. Caitlin Clark. There was some surprise in the room … with our seed, is how it got started. That wasn’t really the seed that many in the people in room were expecting.”

Kellogg said his kids love to watch Clark and called her “the greatest scorer in basketball history.” He was having fun with the controversy leading into Monday’s game. Yes, he knows that Iowa is already playing at home.

“People were like, ‘Well, she’s gonna be home if we win.’ It’s all been half-so funny,” Kellogg said. “You know how social media works. The clip just keeps getting shorter and shorter and shorter. And by the end of it, it’s ‘Mark Kellogg is calling out Caitlin Clark’ or whatever.”

Addison O'Grady emergence is a key development for Iowa

After the Big Ten Tournament championship and before Iowa knew its possible first- and second-round NCAA Tournament opponents, the team had time to work on itself. Iowa associate head coach Jan Jensen also said the team tried to work on opponents with more size than the Hawkeyes have. Of course, the ultimate size team is No. 1 South Carolina is on the other side of the bracket. Another is No. 2 seed UCLA should Iowa advance to the Elite Eight of the Albany 2 region.

One of the beneficiaries of that time off appears to be Addison O’Grady. Iowa will need her if the NCAA wins keep piling up. O’Grady was so good and so important in Saturday’s first-round game that she was asked by head coach Lisa Bluder to get the honor of placing the “IOWA” sticker on the next line in the bracket after the game.

“Her confidence is a big part of how she plays,” teammate Hannah Stuelke said of O’Grady. “She’s a great basketball player, and she just has to believe that. She can do anything.”

With Stuelke (no points) ailing, O’Grady tallied a season-high 14 points on 7-for-9 shooting in only 14 minutes off the bench. That total was just two shy of her career-high 16 set two seasons ago. O’Grady, at 6-foot-4, brings more size to the Iowa lineup than anyone else on the roster. It’s been coaxing more out of her that has been the ongoing challenge. O’Grady credited Jensen, a renowned frontcourt coach, for helping her along.

“She’s the post whisperer, as she’s known as. She just keeps me physically and mentally ready to go,” O’Grady said. “... She always reminds of how valued we are, how good we are, how ready we are for these moments.”

There were conflicting reports about Stuelke’s absence in the final 26:41. Bluder said she didn’t feel well. Stuelke said she had migraines but also conceded she got banged up. O’Grady mentioned that coaches told her Stuelke’s “knee wasn’t feeling great,” which is why she started the second half.

On Sunday, Stuelke said she was "absolutely" good to go against West Virginia after eating Wig & Pen taco pizza and sleeping after the Holy Cross win.

"I'm really excited, especially since I had limited minutes (Saturday)," Stuelke said. "I'll be able to get back out there fully. So that'll be really fun."

Kylie Feuerbach was set to stay up late Sunday night, for a good reason

On the eve of Iowa’s round-of-32 matchup with West Virginia, redshirt junior forward Kylie Feuerbach was gearing up to be a big Yale men’s basketball fan ... again.

Feuerbach’s boyfriend is John Poulakidas, who delivered one of the top performances in the NCAA men’s first round. Poulakidas scored a season-high 28 points in the the 13th-seeded Bulldogs’ upset of No. 4 seed Auburn, the Southeastern Conference tournament champion. Yale was scheduled to face San Diego State late Sunday night for a spot in the Sweet 16.

Feuerbach grinned widely thinking back to her antics, in her bedroom, while in pajamas and watching Poulakidas deliver big shot after big shot. She said teammate Gabbie Marshall streamed her reactions on FaceTime.

"It’s a very sweet moment for me even though I’m not at the game, because I know how much work he puts into his craft," Feuerbach said. "He’s a lights-out shooter."

Feuerbach is from Sycamore, Ill., and Poulakidas is from nearby Naperville, a western Chicago suburb. They knew each other in high school through basketball and have been dating for about two years. Yale is playing in Spokane, Wash. It is a wild time with both players going for Sweet 16 berths in a matter of 24 hours, two time zones apart.

“We’re both locking in," Feuerbach said. "It’s very hard talking right now because we’re both busy. It’s such a fun time and we just want both of us to experience it."

Clark, a basketball junkie, lives with Feuerbach and offered her perspective on the Yale success.

"It's so funny," Clark said. "My favorite thing is listening to Kylie screaming at the TV about Yale men's basketball. It's pretty crazy. I take videos of her screaming at the TV, it's awesome."

Caitlin Clark: Due for a monster game?

That seems sort of crazy to even type, considering the likely national player of the year is averaging 29.7 points and 12.3 assists over her last three games. But Clark knows she hasn’t had a dynamic shooting performance since Feb. 28 at Minnesota, when she unleashed a 33-point barrage on 8-of-14 shooting from downtown on the night she passed Lynette Woodard as Division I women’s basketball’s all-time scoring leader.

Starting with the Big Ten Tournament, Clark has connected on “only” 14 3-pointers on 51 attempts, a 27.5% clip – well below the 39.3% season clip that preceded this four-game stretch.

Clark’s final home game as a Hawkeye certainly will bring plenty of spotlight, and that is usually when she is at her best. She scored a career-high 49 points on Feb. 15 against Michigan, the night she surpassed Kelsey Plum’s iconic NCAA record of 3,527 career points.

Clark enters Monday’s game with a chance at more Plum history. At 1,081 points this season, she needs 29 to pass Plum’s single-season mark of 1,109 set in 2017.

“This is my last time (playing in Carver)," Clark said. "So we’ve got to go out on a high note."

Hawkeyes columnist Chad Leistikow has served for 29 years with The Des Moines Register and USA TODAY Sports Network. Chad is the 2023 INA Iowa Sports Columnist of the Year and NSMA Co-Sportswriter of the Year in Iowa. Join Chad's text-message group (free for subscribers) at HawkCentral.com/HawkeyesTexts. Follow @ChadLeistikow on Twitter.