The Iowa women’s basketball program in recent games has seemingly regained its footing, emerging from a dismal five-game conference losing streak to net three victories in a row — and it looks to continue that progress this week.
Now 15-7, including 5-6 in the Big Ten, the Hawkeyes look to shore up their numbers in Thursday’s contest against a toughened Minnesota squad after an upset over then-No. 4 USC on Sunday.
While Iowa started 2025 strong with an 80-68 win over Penn State on Jan. 1, things quickly unraveled for the Hawkeyes in their next five Big Ten games. Particularly hard to surmount were blown leads over Nebraska and Oregon on Jan. 16 and 19, respectively, contests that Iowa dropped by a combined four points.
“I’m hoping this is one of our lower points,” first-year head coach Jan Jensen said after a 62-57 road loss to Illinois on Jan. 9. “There’s a lot of big games left. Collectively, I just think we [have] to keep pushing on.”
Morale has since picked up, as the Hawkeyes bested Washington on the road, 85-61, on Jan. 22 and, less than a week later on Jan. 28, edged out Northwestern at home, 85-80. The key morale boost was Iowa’s upset win over a then-No. 4 USC team in front of a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Feb. 2.
“These past three games really have given us a huge spark,” fourth-year Addison O’Grady said after the 76-69 win over the Trojans. “I think today really showed us how good we can be, that we can win and we can stay in any game with any team.”
With Thursday’s game against the Golden Gophers, the Hawkeyes have a chance to shore up their overall record and break even in conference play as well as nab another win that could help with a potential NCAA tournament bid.
Despite Iowa’s recent success, Thursday’s competition will be no easy feat, especially not with analysts seeming to favor Minnesota. In fact, ESPN Analytics estimated the Gophers a whopping 63.5-percent chance of coming out on top come Thursday night in Minneapolis.
A glaring difference on the two teams’ stat sheets is the competition they’ve played. Minnesota has lost five games this season, all of them to ranked opponents. In contrast, only two of the Hawkeyes’ seven losses have been to ranked teams, with unranked foes such as Illinois and Indiana posing a formidable challenge.
Where Iowa does have an advantage is the numbers. Fourth-year guard Lucy Olsen, who scored 28 points against USC, is currently averaging 16.4 points per game, compared to the Gophers’ high of 11.9 points.
The only major statistic where Minnesota leads is in steals, with third-year guard Amaya Battle averaging 1.9 steals per game. Given that the Hawkeyes have been plagued with turnovers, a problem that started long before this season, this could get the Gophers some easy points.
Nevertheless, Iowa remains optimistic as game day draws nearer.
“I think in practice, we’ve all been clicking a lot better,” Olsen said after the victory against the now-No. 7 Trojans. “I think it just takes time sometimes. We needed to learn to play with each other.”
Set to tip off in Minneapolis at 7 p.m., the contest will receive coverage from both the Big Ten Network and the Hawkeye Radio Network.