For Iowa, Thursday’s 80-39 win over Eastern Illinois was less about the final margin than the shape of the week ahead. The Hawkeyes are 2-0, they are scoring with balance, and they are moving toward a much sterner test against No. 2 Connecticut with enough early momentum to make the trip to Storrs feel like something more than a measuring stick.
McKenna Woliczko, a first-year forward, was the clear scoring leader with 22 points, including four 3-point baskets. That mattered because Iowa did not need one isolated performance to survive Eastern Illinois; it needed a way to keep the offense organized while other pieces settled in. Woliczko provided that, and she did it with the kind of perimeter confidence that can change how defenses have to guard Iowa going forward.
She said that the work has been building before games and during practice, especially from three-point range, and that the confidence has grown because of that repetition. Just as important, she pointed to the encouragement from teammates who keep telling her to shoot. That combination of preparation and trust is often what turns a promising scorer into a reliable one.
Iowa’s balance is the early story
The bigger takeaway from the opening two games is not just that Iowa has won, but that the offense has already shown multiple paths to production. The Hawkeyes opened with a 73-45 victory over Towson on November 3, then followed it with the 80-39 result against Eastern Illinois on November 5 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. That is a strong start by any measure, and it suggests Iowa is not depending on a single hot hand to carry it through the early schedule.
Jan Jensen was quick to separate a comfortable win from the standard Iowa will need in the coming days. “We’re not nearly where we need to be to be long-term successful and we’re going to have to get better in the next 48 hours, too, to go into a real hostile environment and play a team that is coming off a loss,” she said. That is the right framing. Beating Eastern Illinois was expected; preparing for Connecticut is the real challenge.
That challenge is sharpened by recent history. Connecticut defeated Iowa 90-64 last December in Brooklyn, New York, and the Huskies are again in the middle of the conversation around the sport’s top teams. They are also coming off a 77-66 loss to No. 5 Michigan in Ann Arbor, so Sunday’s matchup in Storrs should bring urgency on both sides. For Iowa, the Eastern Illinois game was useful because it gave the Hawkeyes a chance to sharpen habits before a far tougher road test. What comes next will tell us much more about where this team really stands.
