IOWA CITY − In the quest to figure out what this Iowa women’s basketball team will become in the post-Caitlin Clark era, sometimes it’s easy to forget that the head coach is trying to figure it out, too.
Jan Jensen, in her 25th Cy-Hawk game but first in the head coach’s seat, found herself searching for answers on Wednesday night. After being reluctant to use her bench in last weekend’s ugly loss to Tennessee in New York, Jensen and her staff agreed that they needed to trust their talented freshmen more. And with Iowa falling into a fast 16-6 hole and playing from behind Iowa State most of the night at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Jensen had plenty of license to experiment. She made 14 first-quarter substitutions alone.
Jensen was hunting for any lineup combination that could click.
And, finally, with 8 minutes 3 seconds left, she found the winning solution.
“What’s unique about coaching is you can go in and have a pretty good game plan,” Jensen said after Iowa’s 75-69 win against the Audi Crooks-led Cyclones. “But you really have to read it and feel it.”
Let’s set the stage.
Iowa had rallied from a 56-46 deficit on the strength of three 3-pointers – two from ex-Cyclone Kylie Feuerbach, one from senior Sydney Affolter – to deliver a 10-0 Iowa surge. But after officials ruled that Addi O’Grady had intentionally fouled Crooks before Feuerbach’s second 3-pointer tied the score at 56-56, Jensen subbed in 5-foot-10 guard Taylor Stremlow for 6-4 center O’Grady. The Cyclones now led, 59-56.
Jensen’s on-the-fly thinking: Trying to match Crooks with size at the 5 spot was a consistent net loss. To that point, Crooks had scored 27 points to O’Grady and Ava Heiden’s combined two and could have had way more if her free throws (3-for-10) were falling.
So, 6-2 Hannah Stuelke moved from the 4 to the 5 – the position she mostly played last year in Iowa’s racehorse, guard-oriented lineup paced by Clark. And, for the first time this season, Jensen put Affolter at the 4.
“I wanted to throw it off and give (Crooks) another look with Hannah,” Jensen said. “And Syd’s our dawg.”
The idea was to have Stuelke, a more athletic forward, front-guard the imposing 6-3 Crooks. That made post entry feeds a lot more challenging. On one sequence, Stuelke batted away two consecutive lob attempts. In some instances, the scrappy Stremlow would come from behind Crooks and slap at the basketball.
Crooks was shut out in the fourth quarter until two inconsequential layups in the final 28 seconds to finish with a game-high 31 points.
Jensen used only six players in the final 8:03: Lucy Olsen (25 points) at the 1, a blend of Feuerbach and freshman Aaliyah Guyton at the 2, Stremlow at the 3, Affolter at the 4 and Stuelke at the 5.
Stremlow was a spark plug all night with her defense. Affolter delivered her best performance of the season (16 points), including two big left-handed drives to the post that chopped Iowa State’s lead to 59-58 and then 61-60. And it was Affolter’s sweet dish to Stuelke that gave Iowa a 62-61 advantage with 4:24 left.
To that point, Iowa had led only for 19 seconds. It would not trail again.
“We were down for a lot of the game, but we were never out,” Affolter said. “We never thought we were going to lose that game.”
Guyton made sure of that.
With Iowa’s lead at 68-63 and the clock winding under a minute, Jensen trusted Guyton – in just her fifth career game and first real crunch-time moment – to take a big shot. Olsen scrapped the initial play call after seeing an unguarded Guyton on the left wing. She fearlessly buried a 3-point dagger with 45 seconds left.
On a night that Jensen didn’t have all the answers initially, two true freshmen showed why they deserve plenty of playing time going forward.
Stremlow delivered six points, five rebounds and two steals, but that stat line doesn’t do justice to the fire she brought off the bench. Guyton made the most of her 7:21 in court time, burying both 3-pointers for six points with a team-best plus-10 rating. For the season, Guyton is 8-for-10 from deep (80%).
Four days after a humbling loss in which it committed 30 turnovers, Iowa had only nine. Jensen learned more about her team, which moved to 9-1 with the Big Ten Conference opener looming Sunday at unbeaten Michigan State (9-0).
“I think I kind of learned what I was hoping I’d learn,” Jensen said.
She saw a team that earlier this week turned the page quickly from a tough loss.
“I thought, ‘All right. I think we got something for this rivalry,’” Jensen said. “But I was happy it was going to be at home.”
Speaking of, Jensen was reminded what a tremendous home advantage Iowa can have in tight games. Carver-Hawkeye’s atmosphere rivaled some of the past few seasons in big games with Clark and Co.
Iowa will need to take care of a lot of home business to return to the NCAA Tournament and perhaps contend for a hosting (top-four) seed.
Jensen earlier this year told Olsen, “You’re not going to believe what it’s going to be like’” when the games get bigger at Carver-Hawkeye. Olsen realized Wednesday her coach was right. It was so loud that she couldn’t hear some of her teammates’ screen calls on defense.
“It was really fun,” Olsen said. “I’ve never been in anything like it.”
This Iowa team is far from a finished product. But Wednesday began to reveal more clues about what these Hawkeyes can be.
They’ve got a really good point guard in Olsen, who is now averaging 19 points a game and getting more comfortable as the team’s alpha.
They’ve got an outstanding forward in Stuelke (13 points, nine rebounds) who is perfectly comfortable at the 4 or 5.
Affolter looks like Affolter again after her slow buildup following knee surgery.
And some of these freshmen can really play. Heiden administered a few blocked shots. Teagan Mallegni will be the next to break out. But on this night, Stremlow and Guyton proved they belong.
“A lot of different people bring energy off the bench,” Olsen said. “Those two just came in with a lot of fire, and it lit the rest of us up, too.”
Hawkeyes columnist Chad Leistikow has served for 30 years with The Des Moines Register and USA TODAY Sports Network. Chad is the 2023 INA Iowa Sports Columnist of the Year and NSMA Co-Sportswriter of the Year in Iowa. Join Chad’s text-message group (free for subscribers) at HawkCentral.com/HawkeyesTexts. Follow @ChadLeistikow on X.
