By Dallas Jones

IOWA CITY, IOWA – 2024 will go down as one of the most important and influential calendar years in the history of Hawkeye Women’s basketball. This afternoon, Iowa women’s hoops closed 2024 out with a 84-63 win over Purdue.

Iowa entered Sunday afternoon’s game on nine days rest after their 92-86 win over UNI on December 20th. Purdue (7-5, 0-1) had won its last game 87-68 over Indiana State on December 21st. This group is still learning how to put together a consistent 40 minute performance, but today was a big step, especially for the younger group.

First quarter: The Hawkeye offense was ready early and often as they scored on their first three possessions of the game. They finished the quarter 12-18 from the field. Lucy Olsen led with six early points.

The Hawkeye defense made an impact as well, forcing four early turnovers on the Boilermakers. Purdue only put up 13 points in the quarter on 6-16 (37.5%) from the field.

Iowa has toyed with a lot of different lineups this season and today we got a look at one of the younger lineups at Iowa’s disposal. We saw Aalyiah Guyton, Taylor McCabe, Teagan Mallegni, Taylor Stremlow and Ava Heiden check in together in the first and immediately spark a 6-0 run. That unit eventually pushed the lead to 14 towards the end of the quarter, their largest at the time.

Second quarter: Purdue would not go without a fight as less than four minutes into the second quarter they went on a 9-0 run that cut the lead back down to six.

Iowa bounced back with a 6-0 run in less than a minute, pushing the lead to 12 with 3:20 left till halftime. At that point in the game, Iowa had seven different players with five or more points in the game.

The Hawkeye would close the quarter on a 15-3 run in the final 4:16 and take their biggest lead of the game into the half.

Taylor Stremlow (+23) and Aalyiah Guyton (+19) made huge impacts in their time on the court. Stremlow led all scorers at the break with nine points to go with four rebounds and two assists. Guyton followed closely with seven points of her own.

Third quarter: The Hawkeye offense took a bit to get going in the third quarter as they started just 1-6 after the break.

The Hawkeye defense held Purdue to just 3-7 in that span as they held a 16 point lead with 4:58 left in the third quarter. Purdue then came out of a timeout and knocked down back to back threes, capping off a 15-2 run and cutting the lead down to eight points.

Just like they had already done earlier in the game, Iowa answered Purdue with a run of their own. They held Purdue to a two and a half minute scoring drought while putting a few shots of their own into the hoop. They saw their lead increase back up to 19 by the end of the quarter.

Fourth quarter: The stellar close to the third quarter for the Hawkeyes was too much for Purdue to battle back from in the fourth.

Iowa held Purdue to just 6-15 (40%) from the field in the closing quarter and forced four turnovers.

The Hawkeyes finished the game with seven different players scoring eight or more points. Addi O’Grady led all scorers with 12 points.

Check out what Coach Jensen and a couple of Hawkeyes had to say postgame here: