It’s an in-state battle in Carver-Hawkeye arena as the Hawkeyes are set to host the Panthers in a Thursday night bout.

Both Iowa (2-1) and Northern Iowa (1-1) got overwhelemed in the front court in their last times out against top competition at their respective levels- the Hawkeyes against UConn and the Panthers against mid-major powerhouse South Dakota State.

On paper, the matchup heavily favors Iowa, but UNI is a strong and storied program with a good culture that won’t roll over without a fight.

Starting lineups

Iowa:
Dani Carnegie
Chazadi Wright
Amari Whiting
McKenna Woliczko
Ava Heiden

UNI:
Abby Tuttle
Jenna Twedt
Callie Levin
Elise Jaeger
Kaylynn James

Levin, an Iowa transfer who hails from Solon, just about 20 minutes from campus, recieved quite an ovation from the Hawkeye crowd.

Heiden starting the game with a bandage already over her left eye, this is a matchup she’s primed to do major damage in. The Panthers don’t have an obvious answer for her.

First Quarter

10:00 – Heiden wins the tip and they go straight to her on a post up. She misses the layup, but it was an immediate clean look for number five.

8:40 – Back-to-back steals for Northern Iowa, their pressure is giving the Iowa backcourt trouble early.

7:40 – Carnegie opens the scoring off a flashy assist from Wright that gets the crowd into the game.

7:15 – Whatever the Panthers’ plan is against Heiden, they didn’t execute on her second post touch. Heiden easily finishes and forces a UNI timeout.

6:26 – Mya Nicholson comes off the bench and has an instant impact, drilling a 3 to get the Panthers on the board.

4:08 – After a rocky start, the Hawkeyes are heating up. Three straight buckets for Iowa have opened up a 14-5 lead, and Iowa’s shot quality has been significantly better than the Panthers’ since the UNI timeout.

2:15 – Carnegie’s vision has been elite over the past several possessions, finding the open woman each time she touches the ball. She’s up to a game-high three assists already.

0:00 – The Hawkeyes ended the quarter on a 14-2 run, giving them an 18-5 lead. Those five early turnovers kept Iowa from blowing this game wide open, but unless the Panthers can find a way to bring that pressure back, this one could get out of hand quickly.

Second quarter

5:50 – Now it’s the Hawkeye backcourt turning over UNI, forcing 5 turnovers in a 3-minute stretch.

4:55 – Heiden has 5 points in the quarter and is up to a game-high 9 points. She’s too strong, too tall, and too skilled for the relatively undersized Panthers.

3:30 – Carnegie checks in and immediately hits a transition 3 off of a Journey Houston block. The 6-foot forward from Davenport has 5 boards and just scored her first bucket to boot.

2:47 – Carnegie the first player into double digits, she’s up to 11 after a pair of free throws.

0:51 – Iowa is just making everything difficult for UNI. Dribble handoffs, passes, post backdowns, nothing is coming free for the Panthers.

0:00 – Carnegie hits a floater at the buzzer, scoring her 1,000th career point to put an exclamation point on a dominant first half. She singlehandedly outscored the Panthers with 13 points, provided 4 assists to 0 turnovers, and pulled down a pair of rebounds. Elite half by the junior from New York.

Halftime takeaways

Despite leading 40-11, there’s plenty for Jan Jensen to coach on in that first half. The Hawkeyes surrendered 10 turnovers, about half of which came in the opening five minutes. Clean up those turnovers and the Hawkeyes are up by 40. Heiden got doubled late in the half after she dribbled to set up a move, leading to a tie-up. With her physical advantage, Heiden should be going straight up with that one. Those details won’t matter for tonight’s result, but they’ll be critical when Iowa takes on elite opponents like USC, Maryland and Michigan.

UNI has to find a way to make the ball flow better. There’s too much effort being expended on simple screens, handoffs and passes. When you’re barely surviving those basic actions, 11 points and 17 turnovers are the natural result. The ball has had a tendency to stick in both the high and low post, the Panthers need to figure out actions to turn those looks into kickouts or cutters at the rim. Their 9.1% shooting from 3 hasn’t helped matters, but a lot of those shots have been late-clock looks that gave the taller, longer Hawkeyes easy looks for blocks.

Third Quarter

5:30 – Carnegie with 7 early points to open the second half, picking up right where she left off. The Panthers have picked up the offense and played fairly evenly with the Hawkeyes since the beak.

3:57 – Woliczko’s off-ball movement has been elite tonight, she hits her second three of the night to put her up to 12 points. She’s got 8 boards now, firmly on double-double watch. Carnegie up to 6 assists to go with her 20 points.

3:36 – A Hawkeye block into a three at the other end gets the biggest rise out of the Carver crowd that we’ve seen all night. Result hasn’t been in question since the first quarter, now it’s just about process for both sides, and UNI’s process had been better up to that point this quarter. The Panthers have moved the ball well and gotten open looks throughout the third after getting almost none the entire first half.

3:23 – Bria Medina checks in for the first time tonight, an indication that the night may be close to done for the Iowa starters. Iowa’s roster isn’t the deepest in terms of pure numbers, with only 11 players listed, so key rotation pieces will be in for the Hawkeyes even in garbage time.

1:14 – Jocelyn Faison getting fancy with it, as she fakes a pass mid-drive to generate a wide-open layup, probably the single biggest highlight of the night.

Fourth quarter

7:04 – The last of the Iowa starters check out for presumably the final time tonight.

3:46 – Freshman Taylor Franck, of Mt. Vernon, about half an hour from Iowa City, just had a Jose Alvarado-esque steal from behind. The local has had her struggles tonight, as she’s gone scoreless in considerable minutes, but a nice highlight for a player playing so close to home.