Pentagon, say hello to the Department of Defense.
Lucy Olsen paced Iowa with 16 points, six assists and 3-for-5 shooting from downtown as the Hawkeyes stifled Kansas, 71-58, at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Iowa is now 5-0 in the Jan Jensen era, including 3-0 away from the friendly confines of Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The Jayhawks shot just 37% from the field with eight team assists, as Iowa cruised to an 18-4 lead and never looked back.
Hannah Stuelke added her fifth-career double-double with 16 points, 10 rebounds and four assists in the win.
THE DEEP THREE
1. The Department of Defense. For the third time in Iowa's 5-0 start, the Hawkeyes held their foes under 60 points for the game. That's not unheard of at Iowa, but it's got solid (and recent) company; last year's title-chasing squad did it three times in its first four games, and four in the first six.
This year's Hawkeye team has a new head coach, two new staff members and four new faces in its nine-player rotation, plus two more veteran anchors who missed heavy portions of the offseason to knee surgery.
Iowa had every excuse to put forth a pedestrian effort on defense against a Jayhawk squad good enough for NCAA tourney play-in buzz early on. Instead, the Hawkeyes set the tone early with an 18-4 first quarter.
Not an 18-4 first-quarter run — that was the whole quarter, as the Jayhawks finished the first 10 minutes a miserable 1-12 from the field.
"I've got to watch the film, but I think [Kansas] only missed three they should have made," said Jensen of her team's first-quarter dominance. "And I felt it was just a defensive win tonight."
Kansas progressed to the mean in the second quarter with 23 points, and timely perimeter shooting helped keep the Jayhawks within striking distance of, well, striking distance for most of the game; Iowa led by double-digits for the duration of the second half, but never got the lead higher than 17.
In other words, Iowa's first quarter gave it a cushion to weather KU's pesky competitiveness for the rest of the way. Games are never won in the first quarter, as the old chestnut goes, but there's no question Iowa set itself up to succeed.
"That's a great team, so we knew that we weren't going to keep them to four points every quarter," said Olsen. "But coming out strong was definitely a focus for us."
Olsen helped key a transition defensive stop in that second quarter as well, teaming up with Feuerbach on a block and deflection out of bounds, signaling to KU (and the BTN Universe) that you don't just stroll into the Sanford Pentagon and expect free lay-ups:
KU was led by S'Mya Nichols, who notched a game-high 26 points, while Ellie Evans gave the Jayhawks 22 more.
"Nichols and Evans ... still got all the bunches of their points," said Jensen. "But I think that we made it really hard. We made it hard for them to do what they wanted to do, and I think that was key that first quarter."
While Nichols and Evans were the two focal points of the Jayhawk offense, they shot 15-for-36 from the field (42%) — workable, but only if it opens up opportunities for the rest of the team, and that simply didn't happen. The rest of the Jayhawks scored 10 points combined, including a combined 1-for-10 shooting for three points in 57 bench minutes.
Indeed, while Iowa's season-opening defense was similarly stingy last year, there's an undeniable step up in physicality in this year's squad — and it's hard to make the case that there's even a weak link defensively anywhere in the developing nine-player rotation.
"It feels more intense for me, going from last year to this year," said Stuelke. "On defense, we're all just zoned in on it."
2. Long-range Lucy? If there was anything approaching a "knock" on Olsen coming off her All-American season at Villanova last year, it was her three-point shooting, which had dipped to 29% last season after freshman and sophomore campaigns in the mid-30s.
After Caitlin Clark spent the last four years bombing away from 30+ with regularity at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, opponents must have been salivating at the opportunity to guard Olsen from deep instead — and though Olsen's looks from deep have been quality, early returns weren't promising until Wednesday night.
"I think my percentage was like 10%* going into the game, so that was awesome to look at," said Olsen with sarcasm dripping. "It felt really nice to see them all go in from the three-point line [tonight]. Hopefully it keeps going."
*20% going into the game, for the record, and 30% leaving it.
At one point, Olsen was asked if the season's slow start had been a mental block, along the lines of her year-to-year inconsistency.
"It has to be, because I've been working on my shot," said Olsen. "I talked to Coach J, maybe that helped a little bit."
Olsen turned to her coach with a smile, her point-guard intuition sensing one more easy assist for the night. "It did help," she said, nodding in affirmation.
3. More than one way to pluck a Jayhawk. While Jensen leaned on a veteran-heavy rotation in Sunday's win over Drake, she went to her freshmen early and often against KU instead; post Ava Heiden (a DNP-CD until the waning minutes against Drake) and wing Taylor Stremlow were both in by the five-minute mark of the first quarter, and matchup menace Teagan Mallegni was in by the 2:25 mark of the first quarter.
"I thought [the freshmen] weren't really ready for all the action of Drake," said Jensen, gesturing to indicate the complexity of the Bulldogs' offense. "But I thought they were really ready tonight, and they did good things."
All three played double-digit minutes off the bench, and they combined for 17 of Iowa's 23 bench points. And though the trio wasn't without its freshman growing pains, combining for five turnovers, all three dazzled with their opportunities as well, including this typically Tasmanian-Devilish offensive rebound and putback by Stremlow:
Perhaps the most shocking stat of the game: Iowa did not have any fast-break points, according to the official scorebook. Kansas sold out to stop Iowa's transition offense, routinely refusing to crash its offensive glass (19-52 shooting, two o-boards) and forcing Iowa to demonstrate it can win in the half-court against a quality foe.
Well, mission accomplished.
"It wasn't a pretty game," said Jensen. "But both teams were keying on people's strengths. They made it really hard for Addi (O'Grady) and Hannah. They really kind of conglomerated in there. They 'physical-ed' us up on our cuts. So it's hard to get that free movement."
O'Grady finished with a relatively quiet nine points and three rebounds on 3-of-6 shooting, though she did add in an assist, block and steal before fouling out against the active Nichols.
Still, O'Grady's production was always due to return from its stratospheric start at some point, and the fact that Iowa could not only weather it but not even break stride against a tournament-quality foe — in the middle of November — portends well for the versatility and resiliency needed to win come March as well.
Iowa returns to Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday, November 24, to face Washington State. That game tips off at 3 PM CT, once again on the Big Ten Network.
