The Buckeyes and Hawkeyes renew their Big Ten rivalry Monday in Columbus
At lunchtime on Monday, No. 9 Ohio State women’s basketball and the unranked Iowa Hawkeyes celebrate President’s Day on national television. For the first time since the last game of the 2023-24 regular season, the Buckeyes and Hawkeyes add another chapter in their long-running Big Ten rivalry.
It’s the first game that won’t feature names like Jacy Sheldon or Caitlin Clark, but it still features two teams with the personnel to compete in the postseason.
To learn more about this season’s edition of the Hawkeyes, Land-Grant Holy Land reached out to Kyle Huesmann of the Hawkeye Report. The Iowa Hawkeyes beat writer talked about how this team is different without the NCAA all-time leading scorer, how a summer injury for forward Hannah Stuelke is still impacting the Hawkeyes and Iowa’s ceiling in the NCAA Tournament.
Land-Grant Holy Land: With the departure of Iowa’s focal point on offense, and head coach Lisa Bluder, how have the Hawkeyes changed systematically?
Hawkeye Report: Honestly, not a ton has changed systematically, which isn’t a surprise considering Jan Jensen was an assistant under Bluder for 30 years. It just looks a bit different because the personnel changed. They still run the same base offense, but with some of the pieces they lost, most notably Caitlin Clark, they can’t quite go at the same tempo as before and don’t make as many threes as they did last season.
As of late, the offense has really started to hit its stride. Some people may not know that Hannah Stuelke was out the entire summer after postseason knee surgery and then Syd Affolter got a minor procedure right when Stuelke was returning to full speed. That meant transfer Lucy Olsen never really got a chance to work with Stuelke and Affolter on the floor together.
The team started out well in non-conference play, but as team’s started to build a better scouting report against Iowa, the lack of fully healthy practice time over the offseason started to show. Over their current six-game winning streak, the veterans have played more consistent basketball, which they weren’t doing when things were going sideways. Iowa is still going to try to score a decent amount of points in the paint with Stuelke/O’Grady and will look to hit some threes, mostly with McCabe, Affolter and Olsen, but they have a couple of others that can hit from outside. Their three-point shooting has improved quite a bit from the beginning of the season.
The big thing that is different with this team is that they are playing better defense than in year’s past. Credit Jensen and her staff for that. They knew what they were losing offensively with Clarks and others, and made defense an emphasis over the offseason. They are currently ranked 136th in points per possession allowed (0.901), which is almost 100 spots higher than they finished last season (211th).
It’s been even better as of late, holding opponents to below 0.85 points per possession in four of their last six games. Their rebounding has even gotten a touch better, jumping from 31st in total rebounding percentage to 19th, while they are top ten in defensive rebounding.
LGHL: 2. Coach Jensen tried to move Stuelke to a No. 4 role on the team, but moved her back recently after a string of defeats. What does Stuelke bring to the No. 5 role that Addi O’Grady didn’t bring and how has Stuelke grown into the focal point of this new look team?
HR: Stuelke’s natural position is the power forward position and with Addi O’Grady developing into a capable starter at center, the hope was to play Stuelke at the 4 this season. Unfortunately, Hannah was forced to play the 5 all of last season, so she never got reps at the 4 and then, this past offseason, she got knee surgery and did not return to full practice until the fall.
She never got time to work on developing the skills that would allow her to play the 4 at Iowa. Moving Hannah back to the 5 wasn’t due to anything Addi O’Grady was doing poorly, in fact, O’Grady is top ten in the country in field goal percentage. However, the move allowed Stuelke to be a consistent contributor on the offensive end and has allowed the offense to play a little bit faster.
Syd Affolter has also been a beneficiary of the move because the floor opened up a bit more and she has been much more consistent on the offensive end as of late. Hannah didn’t have a great game against Nebraska, but is capable of putting up a double-double any given night at the center position.
LGHL: What has Taylor McCabe brought to the starting lineup with O’Grady now coming off the bench?
HR: McCabe brings three-point shooting, which is something Iowa lost a lot of from last year’s team. Taylor doesn’t create her own three-point looks very often, which, at times, can be an issue, but since the offense has started to hit its stride, she has gotten more looks.
The guard is the team’s top three-point shooter and if she gets 5-6 looks in a game, more often than not, she’s going to make 2-3 of them and sometimes 4 of them. She was 0/4 against Minnesota until late when she hit a clutch three and then knocked down five second half threes in the win over Nebraska.
LGHL: Recent history shows Iowa bringing in maybe one transfer a season, far less than some other sides in the conference, but it’s been quality over quantity with names like Molly Davis and now Olsen. Over the last six games, Olsen is hitting another level for Iowa. What is she doing differently lately and what does she bring to the team overall?
HR: Any time a transfer joins a new team, there is going to be a period of time where that transfer is trying to figure out what role they should play. For Lucy, she was that go-to, 25-point a game scorer at Villanova and it’s hard to bring that same “I’m going to go win us the game mentality” to a more talented team, a better conference, etc, right off the jump.
I think a culmination of things led to her middle of the season struggles, but she has been pretty dominant as of late. At her best, Lucy can score at all three levels and she showed that against USC, Nebraska and even going back to the Washington game. Her midrange game is where she is most comfortable, but she’s been able to get to the rim a bit more lately and that has really opened things up for her.
She’s also started hitting threes at a higher clip. My sense is that earlier in the season, Lucy was trying to learn the system , correctly run the system and fit in with her new team. Now, she is starting to understand when it’s time to run the offense or run the set and when it’s time to abort the play and go get a basket for herself because it’s available. The Lucy Olsen that played against USC and Nebraska was one that saw openings for her to take over the game on her own and she did it.
LGHL: What is this team’s ceiling for the postseason?
HR: This is an interesting question. I think this team, when playing at their best, is a Sweet Sixteen level team. However, some of their close losses earlier in the year may cost them in terms of tournament seeding, with them currently projected in that 8-9 seed range.
Probably too far of a climb to get to a 6 seed and too far to fall out of the tournament. That means they’ll likely be headed to a regional hosted by a 1 or 2 seed. The path to a Sweet 16 is far tougher in that situation than if they won a couple of those earlier games and earned a 5-6 seed.