Iowa women's basketball: No. 23 Hawkeyes drop third straight with home loss to Indiana

Iowa women’s basketball: No. 23 Hawkeyes drop third straight with home loss to Indiana

Posted by author January 12, 2025 Basketball

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IOWA CITY — This was supposed to be the productive trip home Iowa women’s basketball needed to get right, a chance to stabilize things amid a rare skid in a place those in gold love to shine.

It was anything but.

More offensive inconsistency mixed together with constant defensive breakdowns on the perimeter, as Indiana smacked the No. 23 Hawkeyes further down the totem pole of futility. The final product was Sunday’s 74-67 Hoosiers win that signals Iowa’s first three-game losing streak since January 2018. The Hawkeyes (12-5, 2-4 Big Ten Conference) have now dropped consecutive games with fans inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena for the first time since November 2016.

“We’re going to let this one hit us for a little bit,” junior Taylor McCabe said. “We’re on a losing streak now, so we’ve got to find a way to bounce back and snap that.”

It’s been a collective effort of shortcomings to get Iowa in this spot. A wire-to-wire loss that offered sporadic reasons for optimism saw Indiana (12-4, 4-1) take control from the jump and never look back. The Hawkeyes spent the entire afternoon chasing with little extended success, blending few positive stretches with lengthy scoring droughts that never supplied a chance for stability.

A two-point Iowa deficit early in the third quarter soon ballooned to double figures, and the Hawkeyes never fully recovered. Indiana, backed by a 10-for-24 downtown showing that included multiple treys from Yarden Garzon (21 points), Chloe Moore-McNeil (18) and Sydney Parrish (15), had enough cushion to hold one when the Hawkeyes did finally attempt an 11th-hour save.

An 8-0 Iowa spurt with four bench players and three freshmen on the floor arrived with four minutes to play, slicing the Hawkeyes’ hole to 66-62 with momentum building. It was an afternoon-long theme, though — Iowa’s inability to fully pounce when Indiana provided a rare opening. The Hoosiers scored the next four points to shut down a riveting rally.

“I think the young kids are bringing it. The upperclassmen are pressing,” Iowa coach Jan Jensen said. “There’s a fine line between the competition of wanting to get minutes and then being able to manage that competition. That’s where the pressing comes in.

“But when I say that, it’s not in any way, shape or form hurting our team chemistry. I just think individually, they want to do so well. And when you want to do so well and you’re pushing to do so well, it often ends up tighter. What’s happening is we’re starting games very tight.”

Hear from Iowa women’s basketball coach Jan Jensen after the Hawkeyes fall to Indiana

It didn’t take long to see a different level of urgency on the Iowa bench. Conversations between coaches and players were more demonstrative as another wave of first-half struggles piled up. Tension officially boiling over late in the first quarter after Sydney Affolter was hit with a technicality technical foul, at best, for inadvertently swatting the ball away after a made layup.

Affolter pleaded her case to the officials while Jensen launched into a tirade full of emotion and frustration, only stopping because assistants Raina Harmon and Tania Davis came and corralled her. It was really a microcosm of Iowa’s first 20 minutes, where any flashes of positivity vanished before sticking long-term. An 11-2 Hawkeyes run to end the first half only got the game back within reach, The second surge to completely flip this one never arrived.

McCabe led Iowa with 15 points on four treys, while Addi O’Grady added 11 in returning to the starting lineup. Rough efforts from starters Lucy Olsen (8 points, 3-for-12 shooting), Affolter (4 points, 4 turnovers) and Kylie Feuerbach (-16 +/- in nine minutes) had all three on the bench in the closing moments. A 1-for-6 showing with four fouls from Hannah Stuelke provided little assistance as well.

Where do the Hawkeyes go from here? Another home date awaits on Thursday against Nebraska before a West Coast swing to Oregon and Washington. And this is the easier stretch of Iowa’s Big Ten slate before facing a slew of ranked foes in February.

The Hawkeyes will hammer home that plenty of season still remains. While true, Iowa hasn’t delivered much of late to suggest what’s ahead will look different than what’s unfolding now.

“We’ve just got to find a way to click,” freshman Taylor Stremlow said, “on all sides.”

Dargan Southard is a sports trending reporter and covers Iowa athletics for the Des Moines Register and HawkCentral.com. Email him at msouthard@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Dargan_Southard.