Doolittle's career night lifts Iowa past Northwestern

Bethany Doolittle endured a performance to forget in a hard-to-swallow loss at Illinois a week ago.

It's been nothing but games to remember for the senior center since.

Doolittle recorded a career-high 29 points and matched a career-high with 12 rebounds Wednesday lifting No. 22 Iowa to an 83-70 win over Northwestern at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Wednesday's double-double marked the second-straight strong showing by Doolittle that resulted in a second consecutive win for Iowa (13-3, 4-1 Big Ten) since the loss at Illinois last Thursday.

"I tried to go to the basket a little bit stronger this game and it worked out for us," Doolittle said. "I just looked for the open spots in the zone and saw what I could do."

Doolittle did plenty on both ends of the court against Northwestern (13-3, 3-2) as Iowa sits in second place of the Big Ten standings.

In two games since her six-point performance on 3-of-12 shooting against the Illini, Doolittle has hit 19-of-29 field goal attempts.

"I think it's just getting more confident as the season goes on," Doolittle said. "My teammates are really great at finding me in the lane."

Iowa had four players in double figures and shot 51 percent from the floor against a Northwestern squad that entered the game holding opponents to a Big Ten-best 35 percent shooting and less than 57 points per game.

Ally Disterhoft had 16 points while Melissa Dixon scored 13 and freshman Whitney Jennings with 10.

Samantha Logic scored a meager six points, but grabbed 11 rebounds and handed out nine assists while steering an efficient Iowa offense.

"Anyone can go off on this team on any day," Logic said. "We've had Melissa in the 30s and we've had games where people are all around 14 and this game Beth has 29 and it's really tough for teams to defend how we can have five double digit scorers."

Iowa used a 7-0 run that spanned less than 90 seconds to turn a tie game into 30-23 Hawkeye lead.

Dixon started the run with a 3-pointer and Logic and Doolittle followed with baskets in the paint to give Iowa its largest lead of the game with 5:22 left in the first half.

"When you have an in and out combination like that it's going to be tough to guard obviously," Logic said of Dixon's shooting and Doolittle's inside play. "Beth playing like that, 29 points is pretty outstanding, we are going to take that any day."

Iowa led by as many as eight in the first half before Lauren Douglas forged a late Northwestern rally.

Douglas scored nine straight points for the Wildcats and cut the Iowa lead to 39-38 with a pair of free throws three seconds before the half.

That was just enough time for Jennings to give Iowa the halftime momentum.

The freshman tossed in a runner jumper from 15 feet that just beat the halftime horn and gave Iowa the 41-38 advantage.

"We had a lead and then we kind of surrendered that lead and it was kind of nice going into the locker room with that momentum," Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. "That was kind of a key shot by Whitney."

Iowa opened the second half on an 11-0 run to take a 52-38 lead and never let Northwestern get closer than nine points the rest of the way.

The Hawkeyes held Northwestern to 35 percent shooting, including a 4-of-22 performance by the Wildcat's top scorer, Nia Coffey.

Coffey finished with 12 points and 15 rebounds while Maggie Lyon and Alex Cohen each had 16 to pace Northwestern.

"I was happy with our defense," Bluder said. "This is a team that has been scoring a lot of points and I thought we got out and played pretty good defense."

Reach Ryan Murkena at 319-339-7369 or rmurken@press-citizen.com and follow him on Twitter at @rmmurken.

Halftime—Iowa 41-38. Team fouls—Northwestern 19, Iowa 16.