IOWA CITY, Iowa — Iowa women's basketball officially opened their season in Carver-Hawkeye Arena Wednesday night, beating Northern Illinois 91-73 en route to coach Jan Jensen's first career win as head coach of the Hawkeyes.
The team came off their huge exhibition win over Missouri Western, showing it wasn't a fluke as all five starters found their way to double-digit scoring.
Team-leader in scoring, senior guard Lucy Olsen, finished the game with the most points by a transfer in their debut with 19. She also collected seven assists and four total rebounds.
Red shirt senior guard Kylie Feuerbach was off to the hottest start of the squad however, tallying 11 points, five rebounds and four steals before halftime. She would record career-highs in 3-pointers made, 3-point attempts, rebounds and steals as she finished the game with 14 points (4-9 FG), nine rebounds, six steals, and five assists.
NIU would do their best to keep the game close early on, but after finishing the first quarter within a point, the game would continue to shift Iowa's way quarter-by-quarter.
True freshman guard Teagan Mallegni would come off the bench to record 14 points, going 6-10 from the field to become the only non-starter to record double-digit points. Her total was the most by a true freshman in their debut since Caitlin Clark in 2020.
Noticeably, Iowa (27) had nearly twice as many turnovers as NIU (14), but the Hawkeyes cleaned up with 50 points in the paint compared to NIU's 18.
The game, which marked the team's second ever season opener sellout crowd, was also their 25th consecutive season-opening victory, dating back to 2000.
Iowa improves to 8-5 all-time against the NIU Huskies.
Next up, the team travels to Charlotte, North Carolina to play Virginia Tech at 4:30 p.m. this Sunday. The game will be televised on ESPN2.
