Women's college basketball: Hawkeyes win homecoming for Jansen at Drake

DES MOINES When it came to what this weekend meant to her, Jan Jensen struggled to find the words.

Before she was the head coach of the Iowa women's basketball team and an integral piece of the coaching staff that helped the Hawkeyes reach consecutive national championship games, Jensen was a standout player for the Drake Bulldogs.

Before she led the Hawkeyes onto the floor at the Knapp Center for the first time as a head coach on Sunday, Jensen was honored to be part of the weekend of festivities that celebrated 50 years of Bulldog women's basketball.

"I was just thinking how blessed I was," Jensen said.

"How many people have been able to say that they've been such a special part of two really good programs? Iowa has always supported women's sports." Jensen let her emotions show through moments after Iowa's 86-73 win over Drake on Sunday, highlighted by a career-high 27-point effort from Addison O'Grady to counter a 40-point effort from Drake senior Katie Dinnebier.

Lucy Olson added 18 points as part of a balanced effort for the Hawkeyes that featured four players scoring in double figures, bringing an emotional weekend for their head coach to a happy conclusion.

"I just feel so overwhelmed because I really love this place," Jensen said.

"It was just a weird game to play.

Drake did a fantastic job for the 50-year celebration (on Saturday).

I'm not sure how many former players came back, but being a former player from the late 1980s and early 1990s, I knew all those faces because they'd come back.

When I coached here, we worked hard to get all those alumni to come back.

"It was really a moment, but it was stressful.

It was lovely.

There were several players that were my teammates.

We had several players that I recruited.

You could feel the presence of all those former players, but you also had Drake's current team there.

It was a beautiful thing, but there was a lot of emotion.

I wanted to win, but I wanted to do well for all of it." The presence of one of the best women's college basketball players was also felt as Caitlin Clark came out to support the Hawkeyes, who returned to the hometown of the nation's all-time career scoring leader.

The teams seemed poised to put on a thrilling show through one quarter with Drake holding on to a 25-21 lead over Iowa as the Bulldogs sank five shots from 3-point range in the opening 10 minutes.

O'Grady, however, was able to keep Iowa close despite the hot shooting start for Drake.

While the Bulldogs were able to strike from the perimeter, O'Grady scored 14 points inside sinking all seven shots in the opening quarter for the Hawkeyes.

"I think they were switching between zone and player on defense.

They were over-rotating, so that led to easy buckets for me," O'Grady said.

"I had guards on me in the first few minutes.

My teammates did a good job getting me the ball." Drake cooled off in the second quarter, missing 11 of 13 shots from the field including all seven shots inside the 3-point arc as part of a 10-point period.

Iowa, meanwhile, kept their scoring pace up with 24 points on 11 made field goals in the quarter including a pair of 3-pointers on consecutive possessions by Teagan Mallegni helping Iowa close out the half on an 18-2 run to build a 49-35 halftime lead.

"The team just really set me up and played really well altogether," Mallegni said after scoring 13 points in the win for Iowa.

"The entire team really stepped it up." Drake was able to get back in the game in the third quarter as Dinnebier scored 19 of her 40 points during the first 10 minutes of the second half, cutting Iowa's lead down to 54-49.

O'Grady and Mallegni scored inside with Olson collecting a steal to set up Mallegni's basket before a 3-point play by Hannah Stuelke lifted Iowa to a 61-51 lead.

"We just wanted to limit how much they scored on their runs and maximize how much we scored on our runs," O'Grady said.

"It's really good that we're looking inside and getting things going in the post." O'Grady produced her second career double-double, grabbing 10 rebounds to go along with her team-leading 27 points.

Stuelke added 16 points in the win.

"Our staff stayed steady.

I try to remember how I liked to be coach and how I liked to be motivated when the chips are down," Jensen said.

"What I really love about this team is they're really for each other.

If someone misses a lay-up or misses a switch, I tried to make sure we focused on all the things we were doing well." Iowa (4-0) heads to the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls on Wednesday to face Kansas at 6 p.m.

Drake (2-2) heads to eighth-ranked Iowa State on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m..

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