IOWA CITY, Iowa — When Holy Cross guard Bronagh Power-Cassidy powered her way through the lane looking for position Saturday afternoon, there was a referendum coming on the state of women’s basketball.
OK, maybe that’s overstating things a bit — but not by much. In trying to find her way past Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, it looked like Power-Cassidy threw a hard left punch to the face of the face of the game.
So in that moment it wasn’t a question of whether it was a foul, it was how the violation would be treated considering who it was against. More than that, what would be the consequences if it wasn’t ruled intentional in front of the rabid Iowa fans?
“They would have been upset with that,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “That’s a pretty knowledgeable crowd. They know basketball.”
Fortunately, the officials in the first-round NCAA Tournament game diligently went to check the replay. In the interim, the Carver-Hawkeye Arena crowd screamed for some sort of retribution when the replay appeared on the scoreboard. It looked a lot worse than it was. Power-Cassidy’s elbow actually connected with Clark inadvertently.
“[Caitlin] got hit in the nose,” teammate Kate Martin said. “That doesn’t feel good let me…
