Skip to main content
Iowa
Join Now

Hawkeyes grab a statement win over #15 Michigan State

On3 imageby: Kyle Huesmann01/19/26HuesmannKyle

It felt like a big game atmosphere at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday night and the 11th-ranked Iowa Women’s Basketball team delivered a big-time win. The Hawkeyes were in control for the majority of the night, leading for over 34 minutes en route to a 75-68 victory. With the win, they move to 16-2 on the season and 7-0 in Big Ten play which matches their best start in conference play since 1996.

It’s certainly their biggest win of the season to this point, but was it their best performance?

“That’s a really good question. I think I probably would have said yes, it’s just those doggone turnovers in the second half,” said head coach Jan Jensen. “I’m not ready to say it was the best (performance) yet, but I think it was close.”

After a slow start for both sides, the first quarter played out as you would expect when two top 15 teams take the floor. Back-and-forth they went, the two sides made 15 of their last 24 shots in the opening quarter, including eight points from Hannah Stuelke. MSU guard Kennedy Blair sliced to the rim drawing the Spartans within 19-16 in the closing seconds, but Chit-Chat Wright delivered the highlight of the night, pulling up from halfcourt and finding the bottom of the net at the horn. The shot sent a jolt of electricity through the arena on propeled the Hawkeyes forward in the second quarter.

“I usually don’t have (outward) feelings when I watch things like that, but where she shot it from, I happened to be standing in line (with the shot) and I said out loud, ‘that’s good’…Every coach, every day or week, does something where they all launch in case you need something like that,” said Jensen. “Those are the things you need. You just need that to happen if you’re going to get (ranked) wins like we did.”

A big swing to turn a three-point game into a six-point game, the Hawkeyes were then able to get the Spartans in foul trouble and took control, pushing their advantage to double digits before halftime. One of the Big Ten’s best frontcourt players, Grace VanSlooten, spent the majority of the second quarter on the bench with three fouls.

“In big games, it’s usually which one of the star players has to sit longer,” said Jensen. “Not always, but it was certainly advantageous for us to have #14 (VanSlooten) sitting on the bench in the first half and we needed every bit of that cushion (we built).”

Coming off of a season-best game against Oregon, Addie Deal kept her hot streak going knocking down a pair of triples surrounding the third foul on VanSlooten. Her second three, a deep one from the left wing, pushed the lead to 32-22 and forced MSU head coach Robyn Fralick to take a timeout. Deal has made her last six three-point attempts over the last two games.

The Spartans pushed back with a 7-2 run started by VanSlooten’s sub, Juliann Woodard knocking down a three-pointer. Consecutive trips to the free throw line allowed MSU to pull within 34-29, but the Hawkeyes had a nice answer to close out the half. A midrange jumper, plus the foul by Chit-Chat Wright got the lead back to double-digits, while Addie Deal finished things off, just before the buzzer, with a pull up jumper from just outside of the paint to give Iowa a 41-29 halftime lead.

That late half momentum carried over into the second half for the Hawkeyes, and they nearly turned the game into a blowout. Back-to-back Ava Heiden buckets and Kylie Feuerbach step through in the lane pushed it to a 16-point advantage. The Spartans were able to get a couple of scores, but a Taylor McCabe three, followed by a Chit-Chat three put Iowa in front 53-36, their largest lead of the night.

Keeping it from turning into a full-blown rout was Juliann Woodard. Not the most likely option to keep MSU within striking distance, Woodard knocked down three triples in the span of 2:54. Those shots proved to be important in time, as a short 7-2 spurt, including buckets by Rashunda Jones and Jalyn Brown in the final 90 seconds of the quarter cut the Iowa lead to 65-56 heading into the fourth.

“We let #33 get some (threes) and that’s when Hannah had some foul trouble,” said Jensen. “That’s just a little bit of our youth. When someone’s a shooter and they’re a shooter in the Big Ten, you’ve got to run them off the three-point line. Nothing soft about a close out, but when you are fortunate enough to win it, you can learn from a win.”

As dominant as the Hawkeyes had been, still had to close the game out and that proved to be a bit more of a struggle than they would have liked it to be. Seven of Iowa’s first ten possessions in the fourth quarter ended with a missed shot or a turnover. Sloppiness that allowed Michigan State to claw from 17 down to within 71-66 with just over three minutes to play.

On the ensuing possession, the Hawkeyes were up against it, facing a side inbounds with just 2.3 left on the shot clock. Kylie Feuerbach got it in for Hannah Stuelke who attempted a baseline jumper while fading to her left. That shot found the bottom of the net and was the dagger that Iowa needed, putting them ahead 73-66. Stuelke finished with a game-high 22 points, nine rebounds and five assists.

“Hannah made some big plays down the stretch. They switch and we got them a couple times early and they kind of jammed up the switch, so we didn’t get our first look, but the second look when Kylie got it to Hannah, beautiful little soft touch from that short corner.”

“(Early in the year) I think she felt a little bit of tightness and the sentimentality of being a senior and a little bit of pressure. She just kind of freed herself up and now she’s doing it with her actions. She’s talking more on the floor, and she was trying to direct them.”

When the Hawkeye offense struggled late in the game, the defense picked up the slack. They held MSU to just 12 points over the final ten minutes, including 0-of-4 shooting and two turnovers over the final three minutes until a Jalyn Brown basket in the final seconds. Jan Jensen says she liked the way her team stayed in the moment throughout the game.

“We had some turnovers that we didn’t need to have that can really make you lose your mind as a coach, and it can really take you down as a player because you can’t believe you did that. Everybody just said, okay, let’s depend on our defense. That’s what I really liked. It doesn’t really show up (on the stat sheet), but that mental ability to not get stuck on that last play, our defense held when it needed to.”

On the night, the Hawkeyes were 30-of-56 (53.6%) from the floor, 8-of-23 (34.8%) from three-point range and 7-of-10 (70.0%) from the free throw line. Along with Stuelke’s game-high 22 points, Ava Heiden put up 20 points and six rebounds, while Chit-Chat Wright added 11 points, four rebounds and five assists.

UP NEXT: The Hawkeyes will travel to College Park for a matchup with the 12th-ranked Maryland Terrapins on Thursday night. Tipoff is set for 5:00pm CT on NBC.

You may also like