By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY — Iowa’s women’s basketball team extended its winning streak to nine games with Thursday’s 98-69 win over Loyola (Chicago) at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Caitlin Clark recorded her 13th career triple-double with 35 points, a career-high 17 rebounds, and 10 assists.

And the Hawkeyes go into their Christmas break ranked No. 4 in the nation.

All appears to be fine with Iowa, yet coach Lisa Bluder knows the Hawkeyes aren’t at their best right now.

“I feel like we’re good right now,” Bluder said. “But I think we can get a lot better.”

The final score doesn’t show that it wasn’t easy for Iowa (12-1), which trailed by as much as seven points in the first half of its final nonconference game of the season and needed a 19-3 run in the third quarter to take control of the game.

The Hawkeyes were sloppy in the first half, committing 10 turnovers. And Loyola (6-5) made 10-of-15 field goals in the second quarter, including 5-of-8 3-pointers.

“I think it was just discipline on defense,” Clark said. “A lot of the things were things we talked about prepping for this game. Kind of just mental errors for us.”

“Up until tonight, I thought our defense had improved,” Bluder said.

It didn’t help that guard Gabbie Marshall, the Hawkeyes’ best defender, was out with an illness. But Bluder knows her deep roster should be able to handle that.

“No excuses,” Bluder said. “We don’t know when we’re going to be down a person.”

Iowa made it to the national championship game last season with a steady starting lineup. Four players — Clark, Marshall, Kate Martin and Monika Czinano — made every start, with McKenna Warnock starting 36 of the 38 games.

This season, only Clark and Martin have started every game. 

“We’re always a work in progress,” Bluder said. “We had a different lineup again tonight.”

Yet the combinations always seem to work.

Clark, of course, was spectacular. It was her third triple-double with 35 or more points, and her 43rd game of 30 points or more.

There was plenty of scoring help around her. Hannah Stuelke had 20 points, Martin had 19, and Sydney Affolter, making her second career start, had 10.

If anything, the first half was an education. You can survive such halves against a team like Loyola, but they can doom you in Big Ten play.

“Loyola shot the ball really well — too well — and that’s on us,” Bluder said.

It’s why the Hawkeyes challenged each other during halftime.

“At halftime, it was just ‘Value the ball,’” Martin said. “We knew what to do. It was just uncharacteristic mistakes.”

The second half was more about what Iowa adjusted than anything else. The Hawkeyes shot 55.6 percent in the third quarter and 47.1 percent in the fourth, but they held Loyola to just five field goals in the third quarter and three in the fourth.

All of those stats were related, everyone insisted. Asked what was working for the offense, Martin responded, “Got stops,” and Bluder and Clark quickly echoed the same two words.

Iowa had 15 fast-break points in the half, and scored 15 points off turnovers.

The Hawkeyes of this year need to consistently be like the Hawkeyes of last year — Clark is the motor, but the team success is a sum of the parts.

Affolter has become a do-everything player. Kylie Feuerbach has done well in a reserve role — she had four points, two rebounds and three steals, and drew five fouls in 24 minutes in this game. Sharon Goodman didn’t play much in the post, but the Hawkeyes were more comfortable with a smaller lineup with Stuelke inside.

“We need Kylie,” Bluder said. “We need Syd. We need all of those guys playing like that.”

Work in progress, indeed. But the progress seems right on time as the heart of the Big Ten schedule approaches.

Photo: Iowa’s Caitlin Clark (left) passes around a Loyola defender during Thursday’s game. (Brian Ray/hawkeyesports.com)