By Hawk Fanatic

IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa women’s basketball team returns to the court on Thursday as it will face Eastern Illinois at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, and in conjunction with Dance Marathon Night.

No. 10 Iowa (1-0) defeated Towson 73-45 in the season opener on Monday, extending its streak to 27 consecutive regular-season opening wins.

Third-year guard Dani Carnegie, who transferred from Georgia, led Iowa with 21 points, five rebounds and five assists in her Hawkeye debut. First-year forward McKenna Woliczko added 10 points, eight rebounds and three blocks.

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

“Three people in the paint is a little bit difficult to work around sometimes,” Heiden said. “But that opens up other people. So it’s not like scoring is the only thing that I bring.

“Any of these guys can score. So if I’ve got people double-teaming me, then I’ll go set a ball screen for them. I’ll get someone else open. As long as the team wins, it doesn’t really matter.”

Eastern Illinois opened its season Tuesday with a 76-54 loss at Drake. Nyah Hardy led the Panthers with 15 points, while Janyah Bohanon added 10.

Eastern Illinois is in its third season under head coach Marqus McGlothan after finishing 4-27 overall and 3-17 in Ohio Valley Conference play in 2025-26.

The Panthers were picked seventh in the 2026-27 OVC preseason poll.

Senior guard Ava Stoller returns after leading EIU with 11.9 points and 2.8 assists per game last season. Stoller also set the program’s single-season free throw percentage record at 90 percent.

The Panthers open the season with three consecutive games in the state of Iowa, traveling to Drake (Nov. 3), Iowa (Nov. 5) and Iowa State (Nov. 8).

Jan Jensen is in her third season as the head coach and she has  51-18 overall record.

Iowa has switched back to running what Jensen calls a four-out offense after having used a different offense last season.

Heiden thinks the adjustments on offense might have caused some of the early struggles against Towson. Iowa shot just 44.6 percent from the field and had 16 turnovers.

Iowa also has six newcomers on the roster and three of them are starters: Carnegie, Oklahoma State transfer Amari Whiting and Woliczko, a former five-star recruit from San Bruno, California.

“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.”

Iowa projected starters

Pos. No. Name Ht. Yr. Hometown Season Stat Summary

PG 11 Chit-Chat Wright 5-4 3rd Atlanta, Ga. 14.0 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 1.0 APG

SG 3 Dani Carnegie 5-9 3rd Mount Vernon, N.Y. 21.0 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 5.0 APG

SF 15 Amari Whiting 5-10 4th Burley, Idaho 3.0 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 2.0 APG

PF 20 McKenna Woliczko 6-2 1st San Bruno, Calif. 10.0 PPG, 8.0 RPG, 1.0 APG

C 5 Ava Heiden 6-4 3rd Sherwood, Ore. 7.0 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 0.0 APG

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Eastern Illinois (0-1) vs. Iowa (1-0)

When: Thursday, 7 p.m.

Where: Carver-Hawkeye Arena

Stream: B1G+

Radio: Hawkeye Radio Network

Series history: Thursday marks the first all-time meeting between Iowa and Eastern Illinois in women’s basketball.