By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa women’s basketball team did what was expected by defeating Towson 73-45 in the season opener on Monday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

But the way in which the game played out probably wasn’t how most expected as No. 10 Iowa struggled to put the pesky Tigers away.

It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that Iowa started to assert its dominance.

The Hawkeyes built a 17-point lead (50-33) in the third quarter, but Towson cut the deficit to 52-41 early in the fourth quarter.

Iowa then responded with a 9-0 scoring run and led 61-41 when first-year forward McKenna Woliczko, a former five-star recruit, converted a traditional 3-point play with 4 minutes, 56 seconds left to play.

The lead ultimately grew to 28 points as the Tigers appeared to run out of gas down the stretch.

Iowa only made 8-of-29 shots from 3-point range and also committed 16 turnovers.

All-Big Ten center Ava Heiden faced double- and triple-team defenses throughout the game and she only took four shots, making three of them.

Iowa also had zero points in transition as Towson controlled the tempo until the fourth quarter when Iowa outscored the Tigers, 21-8.

“I’m a competitor, I would love it to look better,” said Iowa head coach Jan Jensen. “But what I liked about our team; when I went into the locker room, they win by 28 (points), but they know they didn’t play well at all.

“And I think that’s a really good sign of team that’s hungry and knows that we performed subpar in that offense.”

Georgia transfer Dani Carnegie, a 5-foot-9 guard, led three Iowa players in double figures with 21 points on 7-of-15 shooting from the field.

Point guard Chit-Wright finished with 14 points, while the 6-2 Woliczko scored 10 points and led Iowa with eight rebounds in her college debut.

Iowa is running a new offense this season called the four-out, and as Monday’s game showed, it’ll take some time for the players to adjust to it.

Iowa also has six newcomers on the roster and three of them are starters, including Carnegie.

“Again, this is a new offense this year,” Heiden said. “New, old, we’ve done it before. But different from last year. We’re still finding some fluidity in the way that we’re playing. And we’re taking great shots. They just didn’t fall tonight.”

Woliczko scored Iowa’s first points of the season, and her first official points as a Hawkeye, on a 3-point basket with 6:59 left in the first quarter.

Iowa struggled to make shots in the first quarter, converting on just 5-of-14 field-goal attempts, and only led 17-14 heading to the second quarter.

Towson played at a slow and methodical pace on offense, often times melting down the shot clock before attempting a shot.

That strategy worked throughout most of the first half, considering the score was even at 23 with less than three minutes remaining in the second quarter.

However, Iowa closed the second quarter on a 10-0 scoring, capped by a 3-point basket by Wright in the final seconds that expanded Iowa’s led to 33-23 at halftime.

Iowa only made 11-of-27 shots from the field in the first half, and also committed nine turnovers.

Carnegie missed all five of her shots from 3-point range in the first half, while Iowa made just 4-of-14 shots from three as a team in the first half.

Iowa never really got hot from a shooting standpoint, finishing just 25-of-56 from field, though Carnegie found her range in the second half as she made 5-of-8 shots from the field after halftime.

Jensen has described Carnegie as a “bucket getter” and sometimes a player with that reputation has sort of earned the right to keep shooting even if the shots aren’t falling, as was the case for Carnegie early in Monday’s game.

This is also Carnegie’s first season as a Hawkeye, so there’s a learning process for her, and for Jensen.

“I’m still learning her,” Jensen said of Carnegie, who is from Mount Vernon, New York. “I’m learning what’s comfortable for her. When do i sense that she’s kind of forcing or pulling back, you know hesitant.

“So that’s kind of the fun and the challenge of it. But it’s also a little bit hard. I got six new people that you’re trying to fit in and learn, and you’re trying to do all the puzzle pieces to fit it just at the perfect time.”

Jensen was asked in her post-game press conference if Carnegie is the kind of player that just has be allowed to keep shooting even when the shots aren’t falling.

“The short answer is definitely,” Jensen said. “You’ve got to let a shooter shoot. But we also can’t lose it so much that it’s too much that focus to get her out of a slump that the offense doesn’t roll.”

Iowa returns to action on Thursday, hosting Eastern Illinois at 7 p.m.