Top Takeaways from Iowa's win over Drake

The Iowa Women’s Basketball team traveled to the Knapp Center on Sunday for their first true road test of the season against the Drake Bulldogs and came away with an 86-73 victory. After a feverishly paced first quarter, the Hawkeyes closed the half on a 10-0 run and never relinquished the lead in the second half. Iowa has now won 19 of the last 20 meetings against Drake and are 4-0 for the seventh time in ten seasons.

Here are my top takeaways from the win and what it means for Iowa moving forward.

Main Takeaway: The Addi O’Grady Game.

What a welcome surprise this has been. Jan Jensen mentioned that Ava Heiden was making great strides late in the summer, which had everyone thinking she would be the starter after a couple of games. Not so fast. Addi O’Grady worked hard over the offseason with new assistant coach Randi Henderson and has been a completely different player so far this season.

She was the star of the game against Drake, scoring 14 of the Hawkeyes first 16 points, finishing with a career-high 27 points on 13 of 21 (61.9%). Addi also pulled down ten rebounds for her second career double-double. It seemed like every time Iowa needed a basket, they went to her, and she delivered time and time again. She also recorded three blocks and helped hold Anna Miller to six points on 1/17 shooting.

“Back to our Gustafson years and Czinano years, when we have won it, that inside presence, if you can stay pretty efficient with how you score, you can counter all of their small ball action,” said Jan Jensen in the postgame press conference. “We were hopeful that Addi was going to have a game…The biggest compliment I can give her is I’m now starting to have Czinano and Gustafson expectations. The expectations are only growing because I know she can do it.”

Speaking of those rising expectations, Jan Jensen will want O’Grady to clean up her six turnovers. Through four games, she is averaging 5.2 turnovers per 40 minutes, which is well above Monika Czinano’s senior season (2.9) and Hannah Stuelke last season (2.8). The coaching staff will continue to work with her on a number of things, and she will have to take steps forward as the season goes on, but there were questions about Addi’s ability to fill this role. She has answered them so far.

Five more thoughts from the Hawkeyes win over Drake

1. Lucy Olsen quietly had another solid game

The performance of Lucy Olsen was overshadowed a bit by Addi O’Grady, as well as the timely three-pointers from Taylor McCabe and Teagan Mallegni, but she put together another solid showing. She’s still working through some three-point shooting struggles, but Lucy was 6/10 from two-point range on Sunday. She finished with 18 points, four rebounds and six assists. Through four games, Olsen is averaging 17.8 points, 4.0 rebounds and 5.3 assists. If she can figure out her shot from behind the arc, look out.

2. The Hawkeyes handled the road environment and answered every Drake run

This was a question mark coming into the game. The Knapp Center was sold out, and although there was a solid portion of Iowa fans, it was rocking with Drake fans for the majority of the game. For a new team, with players in new roles, and some that haven’t experienced that type of environment, the Hawkeyes handled it very well.

Drake came out on fire from three-point range, but Iowa countered, going to Addi O’Grady in the post and were able to weather the early storm. After building a ten-point halftime lead, the Hawkeyes were forced to protect against multiple rallies in the second half. The Bulldogs had runs of 6-0, 9-0, 8-1 and 5-0, but Iowa answered each with 5-0, 9-1, 7-0 and 8-0 pushes. Drake, especially Katie Dinnebier tried their hardest to comeback, but the Hawkeyes didn’t budge.

Even though this was the only true road test on the non-conference portion of the schedule, Iowa will travel to several tough arenas in Big Ten play. Not only getting the win but not flinching in the big moments was a good sign for this group.

3. Three-point shooting still hasn’t broken out, but they hit some timely ones

In the Hawkeyes win over Toledo, Taylor McCabe was the only player to hit a three-pointer, and I said on the From the Hawkeye of the Storm Postgame Show that if that happened against Drake, Iowa would lose.

They didn’t exactly light it up from behind the arc on Sunday, but McCabe and Teagan Mallegni knocked down some timely threes. Iowa was 7 of 20 (35.0%) from long distance, with McCabe and Mallegni combining for six of those seven makes.

Overall, through four games, the team is still shooting just 29.6% from three-point range and that currently ranks 201st in the country. It’s an area that will absolutely need to see improvement going forward.

4. Where was Ava Heiden?

Many were asking this during the game, and now after the game. Where was freshman center Ava Heiden? She did not step onto the floor until the 1:22 mark of the fourth quarter when they had an 84-67 lead.

I was not at media availability on Monday to ask Jan Jensen about it, but there’s no doubt that Addi O’Grady having the hot hand from the opening tip had something to do with it. It may also just be that the coaching staff felt like putting Hannah Stuelke on Anna Miller was the better option when O’Grady went to the bench. While I was surprised that Heiden didn’t get any minutes, it’s not something to be concerned about unless it happens again on Wednesday against Kansas.

5. Kylie Feuerbach will look to bounce back against Kansas

We were singing the praises of Kylie Feuerbach after the first couple of games, but she’s been a little off the in the last two. Against Toledo, Feuerbach finished with five points, three rebounds and zero assists. On Sunday against Drake, she finished with just two points and two rebounds. Defensively, it seemed like Kylie got lost a couple of times, which led to some open looks.

I’m not ready to push the panic button with Kylie yet because she has shown some good strides in the early portion of this season. That being said, for her to be the contributor that the team needs, she has to be a threat on both ends of the floor.