IOWA CITY — When scoreboard drama disappears as quickly as it did Wednesday inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena, the night really becomes what you want to make of it.
That’s significant for an Iowa women’s basketball squad still in the fledgling stages of its progression.
Plenty of Hawkeyes took advantage of the stage that beckoned for a breakout. Iowa’s emphatic 94-57 win over Toledo, which had box-score beauty everywhere, marked another step in cementing how Jan Jensen’s first team will operate when the competition intensifies in Big Ten play.
Growth can come in many forms, so let’s start with well…the start. The Hawkeyes (3-0) had just a one-point advantage after a quarter the last time it had an overmatched foe on the other side in the season opener.
This time, Iowa didn’t wait around to pounce.
A 17-0 first-quarter run turned an 8-5 deficit into a robust 22-8 advantage, with four different Hawkeyes scoring. It was a methodical surge, effective in showcasing defensive intensity as much as snatching momentum. Toledo’s scoring drought finished two seconds short of 5 1/2 minutes, the Rockets uninspiringly firing away from deep to no avail. Overall, Toledo hit just eight of 33 3-pointers and didn’t cross the 30-point mark until deep into the third quarter.
With the defensive end locked up, offensive outbursts soon appeared. Taylor McCabe, despite starting on the bench for the first time this season as Sydney Affolter inevitably returned to the starting lineup, finished with 14 points and drained all four of Iowa’s treys.
Double-digit nights from Lucy Olsen (14 points) and Hannah Stuelke (17 points) may seem like givens at this point, but their cohesion spearheading the Iowa system remains important to expand. Remember, those two and Affolter spent little time meshing together this offseason. In a way, these few opportunities Iowa has early in the year against inferior competition is their offseason.
Speaking of Affolter, it was only a matter of time before her workload mirrored what she was doing at the end of last season. It started against Virginia Tech, where the senior guard played 24 minutes off the bench and helped close things out. Her full return arrived Wednesday when Affolter’s name blared through the arena during introductions.
Her final line punctuates what she’ll need to do for this team — a little bit of everything. She finished with 11 points, five rebounds, four assists, two steals and a block. Addi O’Grady added a third straight double-digit showing for good measure (10 points).
As was the case when Iowa ventured to Charlotte after drubbing Northern Illinois in the season opener, the Hawkeyes will again go straight from a blowout victory to a more legit matchup. Iowa heads to Drake on Sunday — always an intense in-state showdown — and the Hawkeyes will need to spin this momentum forward.
Every little successful moment is significant when the faces are fresh. The Hawkeyes maximized all they could Wednesday night.
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.
