Iowa freshman Taylor Stremlow: ‘We’ve grown immensely’ in practice
The Wisconsin native has been playing in the backcourt early in the Jan Jensen era and is of five true freshmen on the roster.
The final piece of the Iowa women’s basketball scheduling puzzle has slid into place.
More than four months after learning their conference opponents inside the new expanded Big Ten, the Hawkeyes now know when those games will happen. The league’s entire conference slate was released Thursday afternoon on Big Ten Network.
Pair that with last month’s non-conference announcement, and Jan Jensen’s inaugural schedule as head coach is officially ready to roll. A retooling Hawkeyes group will need to be as well with a tough Big Ten slate ahead.
Iowa opens Big Ten play Dec. 15 at Michigan State. The home opener comes Dec. 29 vs. Purdue. Noteworthy matchups against national player of the year candidate JuJu Watkins and USC arrives on Feb. 2, with projected league title contender UCLA coming to Iowa City on Feb. 23.
Like the rest of the Big Ten schools positioned in the eastern and central time zones, the Hawkeyes will make just one West Coast trip. That comes in January with Iowa playing at Oregon on Jan. 19 and at Washington on Jan. 22.
Early Big Ten preseason picture for Iowa women’s basketball and others.
To get an idea of the league’s preseason hierarchy, here is how the Big Ten schools were seeded in Charlie Creme’s ESPN women’s basketball bracketology released on Wednesday.
USC (1 seed); UCLA (1 seed); Ohio State (4 seed); Maryland (5 seed); Nebraska (6 seed); Michigan State (7 seed); Indiana (7 seed); Illinois (7 seed); Iowa (8 seed); Minnesota (11 seed).
The full 2024-25 Iowa women’s basketball schedule
- Oct. 30: vs. Missouri Western (exhibition)
- Nov. 6: vs. Northern Illinois
- Nov. 10: vs. Virginia Tech (Charlotte)
- Nov. 13: vs. Toledo
- Nov. 17: at Drake
- Nov. 20: vs. Kansas (Sioux Falls)
- Nov. 24: vs. Washington State
- Nov. 28: vs. Rhode Island (Cancun Challenge)
- Nov. 29: vs. BYU (Cancun Challenge)
- Dec. 7: vs. Tennessee (Brooklyn)
- Dec. 11: vs. Iowa State
- Dec. 15: at Michigan State
- Dec. 20: vs. Northern Iowa
- Dec. 29: vs. Purdue
- Jan. 1: at Penn State
- Jan. 5: vs. Maryland
- Jan. 9: at Illinois
- Jan. 12: vs. Indiana
- Jan. 16: vs. Nebraska
- Jan. 19: at Oregon
- Jan. 22: at Washington
- Jan. 28: vs. Northwestern
- Feb. 2: vs. USC
- Feb. 6: at Minnesota
- Feb. 10: at Nebraska
- Feb. 13: vs. Rutgers
- Feb. 17: at Ohio State
- Feb. 23: vs. UCLA
- Feb. 26: at Michigan
- March 2: vs. Wisconsin
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.