Iowa women’s basketball takeaways from blowout loss vs. UConn

The last time Iowa and UConn took the court before Saturday afternoon was in the 2024 Final Four, a game in which the Hawkeyes won 71-69. That was Caitlin Clark’s last win in an Iowa uniform, and it helped clinch a second straight appearance in the National Championship game.

20 months later, these two teams met once again. This time around, things weren’t as close.

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The number-one-ranked Huskies dominated the Hawkeyes from the jump en route to a 90-64 rout at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Led by National Player of the Year candidate Sarah Strong and an excellent supporting cast, UConn showed the world why they’re the best team in the country currently.

On the flip side, this was a rough day all around for Jan Jensen’s squad. Iowa didn’t have enough firepower to compete with the Huskies, and they struggled throughout the afternoon to find consistency on both ends of the court. What did we learn about the Hawkeyes from this performance? Here are the three biggest takeaways from Iowa’s blowout loss to UConn.

Hannah Stuelke showed up

On a day when most of the Iowa roster struggled, senior forward Hannah Stuelke played a good game. She finished with a team-high 17 points to go along with five rebounds and five assists. She was 8-11 from the field and played a team-high 30 minutes. In a big game like this, the Hawkeyes need their veteran forward to show up, and she did in a big way.

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While it didn’t lead to a win or a very competitive game, this was a great sign for Stuelke going forward. She’s playing a new role on this team with the emergence of Ava Heiden and is looking to find some consistency with her game. This performance against the Huskies could prove to be a turning point in Stuelke’s senior season. The Hawkeyes will need her to play like this in conference play.

Too many turnovers

You’re not going to win many college basketball games by committing 26 turnovers. You’re definitely not beating the best team in the country with that many turnovers. Iowa put itself behind the eight ball numerous times with some careless turnovers that led to easy baskets for the Huskies. UConn scored 41 points off of those 26 Iowa turnovers, making Iowa pay for every mistake.

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The Hawkeyes entered the game averaging 14.4 turnovers per game, which is near the middle of the pack nationwide. UConn took advantage of some sloppy play from Iowa to run away with this game. While the UConn defense is great, 26 turnovers are still way too many. That’s an aspect of the game that Jensen will need to address with this team before conference play starts.

UConn is really, really good

While it’s easy to complain about Iowa’s play in this game, that would be doing a disservice to how good UConn is and how well they played on Saturday. There are huge areas of the Hawkeyes’ game that they need to improve going forward, but a lot of Saturday’s game came down to the Huskies being the best team in the country by a mile. They have multiple player of the year candidates, move the ball extremely well on offense, and play excellent defense.

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There’s no shame in losing to this UConn team. While it would’ve been nice to keep the game closer and be a bit more competitive, there’s no reason to smash the panic button with this team. Iowa ran into an absolute buzzsaw, and a mostly young and inexperienced roster met its match. Jensen will get this team ready to go for Big Ten play, and they’ll learn a lot from this game. There’s no need for panic in Hawkeye nation about this women’s basketball squad.

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This article originally appeared on Hawkeyes Wire: Iowa women’s basketball takeaways from blowout loss vs. UConn