What we learned from Iowa women's 103-97 win over Drake

Behind 30 points from Caitlin Clark and 27 points from Monika Czinano, Iowa women's basketball beat Drake 103-97 Wednesday night in the first college basketball game of any kind played in the Knapp Center since Feb. 29.

The Bulldogs led the game 46-42 at halftime and pulled ahead by as many as 11 points midway through the fourth quarter.

But the Hawkeyes shored up its defense a bit and seemed to have fresher in the fourth quarter, when it outscored the Bulldogs 38-29 to pull away for the victory.

Here's what we learned Wednesday night in Des Moines:

Caitlin Clark proved why she was a five-star prospect

Clark, the former Dowling Catholic star, was dazzling. Iowa's freshman point guard, who picked the Hawkeyes over Notre Dame, Iowa State and a laundry list of other offers, poured in 30 points on 12-for-19 shooting while also dishing out 13 of Iowa's 20 assists.

She logged 27 points on 10-for-17 shooting, eight rebounds, four assists and three steals in Iowa's season-opening win versus Northern Iowa.

"She's an absolute machine," Czinano said after the game.

Clark can score off the dribble. She can get past her defender on the perimeter almost at will with a deep arsenal of moves. Her shot form is pure whether she's pulling up or catching and shooting. And, even though she's most known as a scorer, she demonstrated excellent vision with some of her bounce passes in the lane against Drake.

Translation: So far, Clark is matching her hype.

But it was Clark's teammates who were clutch down the stretch 

Proof?

Iowa scored 38 points in the decisive fourth quarter. Clark scored none of those points.

McKenna Warnock scored 15 points. Czinano added 13, and Gabbie Marshall and Alexis Sevillian each added five. Clark did log five assists.

"They stepped up huge for us," Clark said of her teammates. "I think in high school it's more on me to kind of do it all to try to help us win. But I think tonight that really showed where I could just facilitate more, especially in the fourth quarter."

Drake will kick itself for spoiling this chance

In order to pull off an upset in college basketball, teams almost always need two things to happen: They need to shoot lights out from long range, and they need their opponent to struggle with turnovers.

Well, both of those happened Wednesday night. Drake shot 48.3% (14-for-29) from 3-point range and forced Iowa into 16 turnovers.

The problem? The Bulldogs committed 19 turnovers of their own.

"What a fun game for women's basketball. What a fun game for the state of Iowa to have," Bulldogs head coach Jennie Baranczyk said. "You had six people from two teams score more than 20 points. It's not a one-hit wonder on either team. They're both pretty complete teams and have great players making great plays. To me, I was really proud of our team and wish it could be a different result, but we also played a very good Iowa team."

Paint scoring was a bright spot for Drake. Berg, in particular, had her way all night in the paint, using her strength and gain leverage to consistently get great inside position on her defenders.

Matthew Bain covers recruiting and pretty much anything else under the sports sun for the Des Moines Register and USA TODAY Network.  Contact him at mbain@dmreg.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewBain_.