BTN.com staff, March 6, 2014

Bethany Doolittle scored a career-high 26 points as Iowa cruised to an impressive 81-62 victory over Illinois in the opening round of the 2014 Big Ten Women's basketball tournament. Freshman Ally Disterhoft added a double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds for the Hawkeyes, who will play Purdue on Friday afternoon. Amber Moore led Illinois with 26 points in the loss. Watch all Thursday games live on BTN/BTN2Go and look at back at this games stats with the GameTracker.

Iowa opened the game with an 11-2 run and after Illinois regrouped to take a 27-26 lead, the Hawkeyes closed the half with a 15-2 surge for a 41-29 lead.

Iowa shot 54 percent from the field, made 21 of 26 free throw and had a 45-31 rebounding edge to offset 24 turnovers. The Illini shot just 32 percent and got to the line 14 times, making 10.

Thursday's games (all times ET)
Game 1: No. 8 Ohio State 86, No. 9 Northwestern 77 (noon on BTN/BTN2Go)
Game 2: No. 5 Iowa vs. No. 12 Illinois (about 25 minutes after Game 1 on BTN/BTN2Go)
Game 3: No. 7 Michigan vs. No. 10 Indiana (6:30 p.m. on BTN/BTN2Go)
Game 4: No. 6 Minnesota vs. No. 11 Wisconsin (about 25 minutes after Game 3, BTN/BTN2Go)

The full schedule is here. Catch up on all the action on our Big Ten scoreboard and get video, stats and recaps in this post as they become available.

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