By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Iowa fans gave former Hawkeye Callie Levin a warm welcome when she was introduced as one of Northern Iowa’s five starters on Thursday.

But that’s where the hospitality ended as No. 10 Iowa delivered a beatdown, crushing the Panthers 78-40 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Georgia transfer Dani Carnegie, a 5-foot-9 guard, scored her 1,000th career point and then some as she led Iowa with 22 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the field. The Mount Vernon, New York native also led Iowa with six assists.

Third-year center Ava Heiden also scored in double figures for Iowa with 15 points, as did first-year forward McKenna Woliczko with 14.

Woliczko, a former five-star recruit from San Bruno, California, also led Iowa with nine rebounds, barely missing her first double-double as a Hawkeye.

Iowa’s five starters sat for most of the fourth quarter as Iowa head coach Jan Jensen emptied her bench down the stretch.

“I do feel like I’m settling in now,” Carnegie said. “Just staying focused in the scout. I’m confident in my game and I know my teammates trust me so I just have to be the person I am.”

Woliczko was inserted back in the game in the fourth quarter to try and get her 10th rebound, but her teammates kept making shots.

“They put me back in to try and get that extra rebound, but no one was missing, which is a blessing for us,” Woliczko said. “But it just kind of sucked.”

Iowa extended its winning streak to seven games over the Panthers and has won 18 of the last 19 games in the series. Iowa has won the last two games in the series by a combined score of 152-81, defeating the Panthers 74-41 last season in Cedar Falls.

Up next for the 3-1 Hawkeyes is what figures to be a much tougher test against Vanderbilt Sunday in Sioux City.

Levin, a 5-10 guard from Solon, played for two seasons at Iowa as a reserve guard. She transferred to Northern Iowa this past offseason, presumably in search of more playing time, which she has since gained, at least when she stays out of foul trouble.

Levin picked her second foul with 6 minutes, 14 seconds left in the first quarter and then spent the rest of the first half on the bench.

She would go on to score six points, all of which came on two 3-point baskets in the second half.

Levin became emotional as she talked about the opportunity she now has with Northern Iowa, and about competing against her former team.

“Obviously, it’s different,” Levin said of being on the visiting team at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. “I’m not going to say it’s not. It was a little weird. But I have teammates and I have my coaches who have my back and they had my back all week.

“And obviously, we didn’t get the outcome we wanted, but it was great being back.”

Northern Iowa head coach Tanya Warren gave credit to Iowa for disrupting her team’s offensive execution.

The 40 points was Northern Iowa’s second lowest point total in the series, which covers 32 games.

“We knew they were gong to deny and pressure, we just didn’t do a very good job of executing offensively,” Warren said. “We played on our heels, and against a good team you can’t do that.

“You’ve got to be able to execute and when you get opportunities and easy buckets, you’ve got to be able to knock them down, and we missed a lot of layups.”

Warren was asked how she will use the loss as a learning experience for her team.

“We’re an inexperienced team, it was a great environment, we were intimidated by it,” Warren said. “But this team is going to get better. If we can stay healthy, this team is going to get better. I love this team. I like the versatility of this team,

“We just have to learn from it and get better. Iowa is a top team team for a reason. We know this, and our hope was to come in and compete and play a little bit better. And I thought we did what we need to do defensively. Our offense, we just left it in Cedar Falls.”

Carnegie led Iowa with 13 points in the first half, and that’s exactly how many points she needed to reach 1,000 career points.

She made a basket with one second left in the half, which gave her 1,000 points and her team a 40-11 lead at halftime.

“I still didn’t hear until we got in the locker room, everybody was like you hit a thousand,” Carnegie said. “I said, okay, cool.”

Northern Iowa only made 5-of-24 shots from the field in the first half and had 17 turnovers, while Iowa made 16-of-29 field-goal attempts and had 19-13 rebounding advantage.

Woliczko led Iowa with seven rebounds in the first half.

Iowa bolted to an 18-5 lead after one quarter as UNI made just 2-of-11 shots from the field in the quarter and had seven turnovers.

Carnegie scored six points and had three assists for Iowa in the first quarter.

She was just seven points from reaching 1,000 career points with three quarters to go.

It would only take her one more quarter to get there.

Former Hawkeye Lucy Olsen, who now plays in the WNBA, attended Thursday’s game and received a rousing ovation when introduced in the first half.

Olsen led Iowa in scoring in 2024-25 with a 17.9 per-game average. It was her only season as a Hawkeye as she played her first three seasons for Villanova in her home state of Pennsylvania.

Score by quarters

Northern Iowa 5 6 13 16 – 40

Iowa 18 22 28 10 – 78