Gabbie Marshall discusses her journey through the 2022-23 season

Life as a three-point shooter can be an up and down battle. When your shot is falling, you’re having fun and the fanbase loves you. When you hit a shooting slump, the fanbase base wants you out of the lineup and it becomes a mental battle to get back on track. No one knows this roller coaster better than Gabbie Marshall.

As a sophomore in 2021, Gabbie made 57 three-pointers and shot 47.1% from behind the arc. Last season, she was a 39.3% three-point shooter. Coming into this season, 63.7% of her 212 made shots in her career came from long range. Offensively, Hawkeye fans have always known her as a shooter. However, for the first half of the season, the normally lethal three-point shooter fell into a deep slump.

“When you’re that good of a shooter your whole life and you are in that deep of a slump, obviously your confidence is going to be low,” said Marshall. “I was just in the gym working on the basics and just trying to find that confidence back in my shot.”

Through the first 14 games of the season, Gabbie was shooting just 19.6% from behind the arc. She made just 10 of her first 51 three-pointers and had seven games with zero made shots from behind the arc. Several teams in the early portion of the season began to sag off of Marshall, daring her to shoot it. That, in its own right, can be confidence breaker.

“I’ve never really had that happen before. I’ve always had people trying to run me off the three-point line, so that was more depleting to my confidence,” said Marshall. “I feel like I was hesitant to shoot even because of that, because they were leaving me so wide open.”

Although she has been playing basketball her entire life, Gabbie said that dealing with her early season shooting struggles is near the top of the list, in terms of thoughest things she’s gone through as a basketball player.

“I would say pretty high (on the list). I’ve never really been in that deep of a slump. You’re living out your dreams in college and you want to be playing your best and you want to bring that to the team. When that’s not happening, it’s tough.”

“I was really just talking to my coaches and my teammates and they really are the ones that have brought me out of that slump.”

Good three-point shooters never lose their touch. They may fall into slumps, and sometimes long ones, but the ability to take and make threes is always there, it’s just a matter of finding it again. As the season progressed, Gabbie started to find it more and more.

From January 1st to February 18th, she made at least one three-pointer in 12 of 13 games, including multiple threes in four games. Then, in a 96-68 loss to Maryland on February 21st, it all started to click for her. Despite the 28-point blowout loss for her team, Gabbie knocked down a season-high five three-pointers on 11 attempts.

“I would say at the start of the new year even, I was seeing a few more shots fall and getting that confidence and that mentality to keep shooting back…I feel like after that Maryland game, I was like ‘I’m going to keep shooting this and I’m a great shooter.'”

Since that game in College Park, Gabbie has been torching the nets. Over the last five games, she is shooting 53.7% from behind the arc, including 3+ three-pointers in all five games.

“It just shows that having the right mentality can bring you out of the tough times and the slump…I was trying to bring other things to the team and not put my focus into my shot and I feel like that also really helped me.”

“These past few weeks have been awesome. To be able to shoot the ball well and bring that to the team and open things up more inside, it’s been pretty fun.”

In the Big Ten Tournament, Gabbie was an x-factor in the Hawkeyes run to repeat as champions in Minneapolis. She knocked down four threes in Iowa’s quarterfinal win against Purdue and then followed it up with a career-high tying seven three-point makes in the Hawkeyes 89-84 win over Maryland in the semifinals.

Out of all the three-pointers she has made over the past month, Gabbie says that her last two against the Terrapins were her favorite ones. The first one with 5:57 to play gave Iowa a 76-68 lead and forced a Maryland timeout. The second one with 1:44 to play stopped an 11-3 Terps run and gave the Hawkeyes an 82-79 lead.

“We had just hit a three, got another stop and hit another three and the place was so loud. I had to cover my ears because it was so crazy,” said Marshall. “The seventh one was (a favorite) because we were tied and that was to take the lead.”

In the Big Ten Championship game, Gabbie hit three more three-pointers, as the Hawkeyes blasted the Ohio State Buckeyes en route to a second tournament title in as many seasons. Her third make in that game put Iowa up 100-63 and was an exclamation point on a dominate win. After experiencing one of the lowest points of her career, Gabbie says that these past few weeks are the best of her career.

“I feel like that Big Ten Tournament was one of the best weekend’s of my basketball career. It was so much fun from the start. Everyone was so locked in and ready to work hard and fight to the end of every game.”

Now, Marshall has to find a way to keep her hot shooting going, as the Hawkeyes embark on a quest to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. She says that she has taken the last balance rest and still getting in the gym to work on her shot ahead of tomorrow’s first round game against Southeastern Louisiana.

“I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself, feeling like I have to shoot, but I’ve still been working on it,” said Marshall. “I’ve been taking some rest too, so that good balance, but I’m just really excited for what this team can accomplish.”