IOWA CITY — The miles are piling up early and so are the growth opportunities for Iowa women’s basketball.

For already the third time this season, Jan Jensen’s Hawkeyes will venture away from Carver-Hawkeye Arena for an intriguing non-conference affair. Iowa (4-0) will take its perfect mark to the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, S.D., for Wednesday’s 6 p.m. matchup against Kansas (4-0). The Hawkeyes have won 19 of their last 22 neutral-site games.

This South Dakota showdown is loaded with storylines as these Hawkeyes continue growing together in this young season. Here are three things to watch ahead of Wednesday’s matchup.

Can Iowa take advantage of Kansas’ lack of road experience?

Iowa’s non-conference schedule is the perfect blend of interesting but not overwhelming matchups that can be productive in numerous ways.

The Hawkeyes have already conquered two key ones with wins against Virginia Tech in Charlotte and at Drake on Sunday. Those games away from home should have Iowa ready to handle the quirkiness Sanford Pentagon presents.

Conversely, Wednesday will be the Jayhawks’ first game away from Allen Fieldhouse this season following double-digit home wins over Lindenwood (56-43), Sam Houston (66-51), Omaha (75-56) and North Alabama (81-64). Those victories look good on paper but haven’t offered much adversity to hurdle.

Successfully conquering the first road trip is always an early-season objective, no matter what the roster looks like. Having long cleared that benchmark already, Iowa hopes to catch Kansas off-guard in that regard.

Taylor McCabe believes confidence is growing by the game for Iowa women’s basketball

Taylor McCabe believes confidence is growing by the game for Iowa women’s basketball

Will the Hawkeyes keep their early defensive success going against a versatile Kansas lineup?

Even with Drake guard Katie Dinnebier popping off for 40 points Sunday, the Hawkeyes still delivered a better defensive effort than usual in the Knapp Center. Iowa’s 86-73 win was the fewest points yielded at Drake since 2012.

Now comes the challenge of spinning the defensive confidence forward versus an entirely different look. The versatility of North Dakota State transfer Elle Evans and freshman Reagan Williams, in particular, will put players like Hannah Stuelke and Teagan Mallegni in different defensive spots

“(Kansas’) ‘4s’ are like ‘2s’ and ‘3s’. And (Hannah and Teagan) haven’t guarded that yet,” Jensen said. “We guarded small ball (against Drake). … But this particular ‘4’ matchup, they put it on the floor a little bit more with ease. Kansas’ ‘4’ players play a little bit more like small forwards, and so that’s going to be a whole different matchup than what we’ve had.

“So I’ll be interested to see how we answer that.”

Sydney Affolter previews Iowa women’s basketball vs. Kansas

Sydney Affolter previews Iowa women’s basketball vs. Kansas

Which player delivers the next eye-popping moment during Iowa’s pivotal early-season stretch?

The foundations for lengthy postseason surges are often set in the non-conference, and Iowa has productively used the season’s first two weeks to get multiple players pointed in the right direction.

Addi O’Grady has delivered a huge jolt with four double-digit scoring performances that twice set new career-highs. Sydney Affolter wrapped up her knee recovery and is back in her starting spot. Taylor McCabe shifted back to the bench and immediately responded with seven treys in her last two games. Teagan Mallegni has two double-digit showings in her first four games. So who’s next?

While her start has certainly been above average, is Wednesday the first “go off” game for Lucy Olsen in black and gold? After a rare game without a field goal, does Affolter have a gaudy offensive stat line waiting in the wings? How do Taylor Stremlow and Ava Heiden respond to limited action on Sunday?

Any of these high-end non-conference matchups has a chance to be the next sterling effort Iowa leans on to push this team forward.

Dargan Southard is a sports trending reporter and covers Iowa athletics for the Des Moines Register and HawkCentral.com. Email him at msouthard@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Dargan_Southard.

Flory Bidunga, the 6-foot-9, 220-pound forward from Kokoma (IN) High School, was well on his way to having a career night against UNCW on Tuesday night. In seven minutes of action, Bidunga, KU’s five-star freshman, scored six points and pulled down two rebounds.

Offensively, Bidunga was 3-of-3 from the field and was on pace to dunk himself to a career-high in points.

However, Bidunga went down with an ankle injury in the first half and never returned. In fact, Bidunga didn’t make his way back to KU’s bench until the 11:00 mark of the second half.

Bill Self, who won game No. 800 on Tuesday night, provided the latest update on Bidunga minutes after the game.

“Yeah, I don’t think he should have played, but in a big game where maybe you didn’t have another game coming up immediately after, he could have been back out there probably,” said Self on Tuesday night. “So, he’ll be off of it a day or two, but hopefully be practicing by Friday.

“No, it was his ankle,” he added. (It was) his ankle.”

Kansas, without question, avoided what could have been a devastating injury on Tuesday night. Through five games, Bidunga is averaging 8.4 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. In appearing in all five games, he’s connected on 82.6 percent (19-of-23) of his field goals and 50 percent (4-of-8) of his free throws.

With a big game against Duke scheduled for November 26 in Las Vegas, Self, shortly after winning game No. 800, provided a breakdown of the schedule for the rest of the week.

Thankfully for Self, Kansas should arrive in Las Vegas next week with fresh bodies.

Against UNCW, just one player, Hunter Dickinson, logged 30 minutes. In all, KU’s All-American big man scored 15 points and pulled down 15 rebounds. Overall, Dickinson was 7-of-11 from the field, 0-of-1 from behind the arc, and 1-of-3 from the free-throw line.

Dajuan Harris (17 points, three rebounds, six assists, one turnover, and two steals) played 29 minutes, while KJ Adams (three points, five rebounds) logged 29 minutes as well.

Two just other players, Zeke Mayo (25 minutes) and AJ Storr (22 minutes), played more than 20 minutes. Mayo tallied 10 points, two rebounds, two assists, one turnover, one steal, and one block, while Storr added seven points, one rebound, one assist, and one turnover.

“We’re going to take tomorrow off and then we’ll practice Thursday and Friday hard and then light, very light, probably on Saturday,” said Self. “Then (we’ll) practice Sunday and Monday. So I haven’t watched Duke yet, but we will have a great game to watch ’em against the quality opponent obviously with Kentucky and then they play at Arizona on Friday.

“So we’ll have two games where we will have a pretty good book on them just like they’ll have a pretty good book on us I would think by Tuesday.

TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas has promised to provide more hospital beds for mentally ill criminal defendants to settle a federal lawsuit filed over defendants waiting months for evaluations of whether they were fit for a trial.

The agreement between state officials and representatives of five defendants requires the state to “use its best efforts” to open a new psychiatric hospital by January 2027 in Wichita, the state’s largest city. Officials also must seek funding from the Kansas Legislature to reopen a previously closed 30-bed unit at its psychiatric hospital in Larned in western Kansas, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) northwest of Wichita.

The agreement was announced this week by the two groups pursuing the lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and the National Police Accountability Project, based in the Seattle area. The groups sued in 2022 on behalf of attorneys for four defendants and the mother of a fifth. The accused were identified only by their initials.

The state operates two psychiatric hospitals, but only the one in Larned has a unit for evaluating whether mentally ill criminal defendants can understand their cases and participate in their own defense. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Larned State Hospital has had fewer than 80 beds for defendants awaiting evaluation.

The state Department for Aging and Disability Services, which runs the Larned facility, acknowledged before the lawsuit was filed that defendants were waiting an average of about 11 months to be evaluated. The lawsuit said defendants remained in county jails that weren’t providing adequate treatment, making the inmates’ conditions worse and violating their rights. The lawsuit also said the state was violating the federal Americans with Disabilities Act by discriminating against people with mental health problems.

“This settlement is more than a legal agreement; it’s a lifeline for those who have been lost in the system, a promise that their dignity and humanity will no longer be ignored,” said Lauren Bonds, the police accountability group’s executive director.

One of the five defendants covered by the lawsuit had been held in a county jail for 13 months facing criminal threat charges when the lawsuit was filed. That’s longer than the maximum prison sentence for a conviction on that charge.

“Remaining in the jail environment is devastating and deeply harmful even for those whose mental health is not in question, and condemning Kansans to languish across the state in their county jails was contradictory to our values of justice,” said Monica Bennett, the ACLU of Kansas’ legal director.

State officials argued that they already had been addressing the long waits. The state began having Larned State Hospital officials operate a mobile evaluation unit in 2019; and in 2022, the Legislature passed a law to allow other qualified hospitals and organizations to examine criminal defendants.

The state and Wichita’s home county hope to start construction early next year on a secure, $101.5 million psychiatric hospital with 104 beds, half of them set aside for the state. Federal COVID-19 relief dollars provided part of the funding.

KDADS spokesperson Cara Sloan-Ramos said the department and Gov. Laura Kelly are committed to reducing wait times.

Republican state Rep. Stephen Owens, chair of the House committee handling criminal justice issues, was pleased that the state could settle the lawsuit.

“We’ve certainly been aware of this issue and have been working on solutions,” Owens said Tuesday.