Iowa women’s basketball: Hawkeyes wear down Wisconsin for senior day win

IOWA CITY — It required some time to get the Iowa women’s basketball engine cranked Sunday afternoon. But once it was humming, the Hawkeyes molded this Wisconsin matchup into a familiar final product.

Jan Jensen’s squad methodically wore down a Badgers squad featuring all-conference forward Serah Williams and not much else. A strong third-quarter finish spilled momentum into the fourth, and Iowa took it from there for an 81-66 win on senior day inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

The Hawkeyes (20-9, 10-8 Big Ten Conference) have now run their winning streak to 30 over Wisconsin (13-16, 4-14) dating to February 2007.

“I’ve been around enough senior days, they’re just weird,” Jensen said. “They’re odd. With women — that’s all I’ve coached — there’s just a lot of connection. (Saturday), there were tears in practice. Happy tears. So you’re managing all of that. You try to talk about the pink elephant in the room and get them to be in that 40 minutes. So that, I just never know about senior days.”

Many of Iowa’s victories during this Badger domination have been wrapped up by intermission, light on drama over the final 20 minutes. Sunday’s victory fell somewhere short of that, but only slightly. Although a lingering Wisconsin squad remained close enough to not get blown out, the Badgers never offered up any serious upset vibes.

Buoyed by an emphatic third quarter that generated a large chunk of her 21 points and 15 rebounds, Hannah Stuelke handed Iowa its first double-digit lead of the day at 60-50 with 1:23 remaining in the third quarter. Wisconsin only got sporadically closer the rest of the way.

The only remaining drama was if Jensen could sub out all five seniors consecutively for proper crowd sendoffs. She managed to do that in the waning moments with Iowa comfortably ahead.

“I’m just proud we got the win today,” said senior guard Lucy Olsen, who led the Hawkeyes with 22 points on 9-for-16 shooting. “Going into the (Big Ten) Tournament on a loss would’ve been bad. So I’m just glad we got the win today. But I can’t believe I’m a senior here at Iowa. All this doesn’t seem real.”

Production from Olsen and Stuelke paired with double-digit assistance via Sydney Affolter (10 points) and Addi O’Grady (10 points) to stabilize Iowa’s offense just enough. The Hawkeyes still had some barren stretches, particularly to start the second quarter while trying to shake off a sluggish defensive first quarter. But enough Wisconsin futility in the second half gave Iowa the senior-day result it was hunting.

“It wasn’t like I thought we were just going to show up and have a heyday. I kind did get a little bit intense at halftime,” said Jensen, whose squad was deadlocked 36-36 at intermission. “I didn’t think our defensive intensity was there. I think we were worried about the emotions. It felt like we just didn’t have our focus.”

The Hawkeyes do now and will head to the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis off a solid finish to the regular season, going 5-2 in February followed by this March 2 win. The Hawkeyes are the No. 11 seed and will face these Badgers again ay 7:30 p.m. Wednesday inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

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.