IOWA CITY — Iowa couldn't overcome a listless first half, dropping its third-straight Big Ten contest with a 74-67 loss to visiting Indiana. Taylor McCabe led the Hawkeyes with 15 points off the bench, but Iowa never led in the contest and trailed by as many as 15 in the first half and 10 in the fourth but made a game of it late.

The loss is Iowa's third-straight for the first time since January 2018, and drops the Hawkeyes to 2-4 in Big Ten play — their first time two games under .500 in conference play since the end of the 2015-2016 season.

1. What's this team's identity? For as much as this iteration of the Hawkeyes looked like it would lean on its upperclassmen in a transitional year, the starting lineup is instead looking like more of a weak spot — and Jensen reacted accordingly, giving her bench players 103 minutes of action to the starters' 97. The bench responded accordingly, with 39 of the team's 67 points, including 16 of the team's 18 in the fourth.

"Man, Taylor McCabe had a heck of a game," said Jensen. "4-for-5 [from 3], 4-for-7 overall. And getting them to focus on [those positives], and they've done a really good job of that all year. But as a coach, it gets a little harder when you're in a losing streak. So that's where we have to keep being consistent."

McCabe's fellow Taylor, freshman Taylor Stremlow, led the team with eight rebounds and five steals, and tied the team lead with four assists as she played 26 minutes off the bench — more than any starter managed Sunday.

"The team knows what they can expect from me, that I'm going to give it my all," said Stremlow. "Having that opportunity to come off the bench and bring some energy, do all I can is exciting. Knowing the coaches believe in me is pretty cool too."

It's a good thing to get that sort of production from such a young bench, of course, especially as Iowa looks forward to another loaded 2025 recruiting class to (essentially) complete the post-Caitlin Clark roster rebuild, but it's also a damning indictment of the incumbent seniors, who would and should normally be expected to shoulder the team's load here in the opening stretch of Big Ten play.

"I feel badly for our upperclassmen, I think they're pressing," said Jensen. "The young kids are bringing it; upperclassmen are pressing. There's a fine line between competing for minutes and managing that competition. I think that's where the pressing comes in. ... Individually, they want to do so well. And when you want to do so well, and you're pushing to do so well, often times it ends up being tighter."

Kylie Feuerbach, in particular, looks like she's in a role that's too big for her strengths. The sixth-year guard registered only a missed three-pointer and a turnover in nine minutes of court time, and her -16 rating in a seven-point loss means Iowa was +9 with her on the bench for 31 minutes Sunday — and still lost.

"It's been a lot of our veterans that have made some tough passes, some tough decisions, that have put us in a bit of a hole," said Jensen. "So there's pressure that comes with that, and then there's a delicate dance of how long you ride that out."

Putting a fine point on Feuerbach misses the broader issue, though, especially with none of the starters playing particularly well of late. Syd Affolter played just 22 minutes with four turnovers; her efficiency has dropped substantially since last season, and she doesn't look as comfortable with the offense running through her, with her shooting down across the board and her turnovers nearly doubling last year's performance.

"The tough thing is, you're instructing and you're critiquing, and you're telling them you believe in them," said Jensen. "But then you have to make game-time decisions, which is tough. Because I do believe in Syd whole-heartedly, but I had to give some other minutes tonight, because Stremlow was really making a lot of things happen."

In the post, O'Grady remains a force offensively when she can catch the ball in the post cleanly, but a prolonged stretch of difficulty getting her the ball appears to have caused some trepidation from the senior, who had multiple opportunities for easy buckets that turned into missed shots, turnovers or jump-balls.

"Our posts had point-blank looks," said Jensen. "The post play to me is this, or that. And we did a lot of (gesturing tentatively) playing with it. We had some beautiful plays that worked like a charm, and we just didn't get an immediate decision."

Perhaps no post player was more lost Sunday than Stuelke, who finished with just five points on 1-for-6 shooting from the field, with three of her five misses blocked. Stuelke often looked late on defense as well, and was limited to 23 minutes in the loss.

The struggle from the post meant Iowa couldn't take advantage of one of its best opportunities. The Hawkeyes had Indiana in the bonus for the last 6:34 of the third quarter, and sent starting big Lilly Meister to the bench with her third foul just a minute into the half.

Instead, backup forward Karoline Striplin, a transfer from Tennessee, gave the Hoosiers eight points, six assists and six rebounds in Meister's stead.

"[Striplin] was such a great piece for us to get out of the portal," said Indiana head coach Teri Moren. "Lilly doesn't have the girth, I guess, that [Striplin] has. And then offensively ... Striplin hit some big-time shots."

So how does a team go forward when its starting five struggles en masse like this, against teams with better-defined roles on offense? What exactly does Iowa want to do with its offense? It doesn't seem like this team knows yet.

"That's probably my biggest challenge, because I really love our youth," said Jensen. "I've got to get [the veterans] in better positions, I've got to get them where they're more confident. But I do think the promise of our youth and what they're doing is really, really hopeful."

Hope beats the alternative 100% of the time, of course. But Jensen doesn't exactly have the luxury of patience with figuring the team's identity out. The upcoming home tilt against Nebraska on Thursday is one of only three home games against unranked foes remaining on the schedule, while three top-10 opponents (vs. No. 1 UCLA, @ No. 9 Ohio State, @ No. 10 Michigan) still loom.

2. Who's Iowa's Garzon? The game's top scorer was Hoosier wing Yarden Garzon, who hit all five of her three-pointers (and would have been 6-6 had a Stremlow foul not wiped out another three late in the game) and finished with 21 points and five rebounds. Garzon only missed one shot on the day and hounded the Hawkeyes with physical, disruptive defense all day long.

"She's our leader, y'know?" said Moren. "There's nobody that was more determined today to come in here and not go home without a win. She's our heartbeat, she's our leader."

That heartbeat was pumping cold blood Sunday, and Garzon wanted everyone to know it.

She started her day with a three-pointer in front of Iowa's bench, which was accompanied by a quick but unmistakeable staredown at the Hawkeyes, and finished it by blowing a kiss to the dejected sellout crowd after her last three.

"I missed all of this," said Moren wryly of her wing's competitive theatrics.

"I just remembered what happened last year, and I didn't want it to happen again," said Garzon, whose Hoosiers lost here 84-57 last season. "We want to be the toughest team, and every time we're on the road we're trying to bring it with us."

Garzon's role — a "3-and-D" wing who plays up in big games — is easier imagined than recruited, obviously. But her performance was also notable because of the contrast it drew with Iowa's wings, who just last season were either playing high school ball or congratulating Clark on another basket.

With Iowa's upperclassmen pressing and the team still searching for its identity, Garzon looks like precisely the type of player this Hawkeye team is missing. Of the players on the roster, freshman Teagan Mallegni is the closest to Garzon's archetype, but the true freshman went 0-4 from deep (0-5 overall) Sunday and is down to 37% shooting from the field and 24% from behind the arc on the season.

"She's a really good shooter; she just hasn't shot well since Western Missouri. I believe in her, but there comes a point in the game where you've got to have a little defense and you've got to know that ball's going in."

Mallegni would do well to learn from Garzon's example of what havoc a long, tough-minded wing can wreak on both ends of the floor.

3. Goodbye, Top 25. Iowa came into the game ranked No. 23 in the AP Poll, a ranking that was already hanging on by a thread after No. 8 Maryland's drubbing of the Hawkeyes on the Carver-Hawkeye floor a week prior and then out of the picture when Iowa lost at Illinois earlier in the week.

Now? It's hard to imagine the team receiving any votes for the foreseeable future.

"Young teams, I've been there," Jensen said. "We just haven't all of us together in this room been there in four or five years. I stay steady by remembering when you have a lot of young [players], it's a roller coaster. I know what's coming and I see their camaraderie and their fight."

That's a tough pill to swallow for a team that plays under a pair of Final Four banners that half the roster helped earn, and a fanbase that sold out the season with expectations of some lasting grandeur, even as the echoes of the CC era fade.

And it's not as if they look poorly coached.

"I thought we had some really great looks," said Jensen. "We had some beautiful plays that worked to a charm and we just didn't get a quick decision."

"I do think that our shot selection today was a lot better," said McCabe.

Indeed, what must frustrate Jensen the most is how much meat Iowa left on the bone in that second half, shooting 10-for-31 and missing shots late that could have potentially swung the balance of the game, to say nothing of the Hoosiers generating baskets late in the shot clock.

"We wanted some defense, and then boy, we blow an assignment and they had wide-open shots," said Jensen. "When it got down the stretch, we know we had to match them punch-for-punch, so you're trying to find someone that can put the ball in the bucket. So you're trying to get some defense, then get a couple holds and then throw some offense in there."

Credit Jensen for looking for some answers, but as long as the team has these glaring question marks, it's time to put away the Top 25 hype for a good long while.

Iowa (12-5, 2-4) continues its two-game home stand on Thursday against Nebraska (13-4, 4-2), which tips off at 6 PM on the Big Ten Network.