Kathleen Doyle will get first start when Iowa faces No. 10 UCLA

IOWA CITY — For the Iowa Hawkeyes, this Thanksgiving season means hotel-ballroom basketball.

It will be challenging hotel-ballroom basketball. And it will come with a lineup change.

Freshman Kathleen Doyle will get her first start Thursday when the Hawkeyes (4-1) face No. 10 UCLA (3-1) in the Cancun Challenge. Tipoff is 8 p.m. (Iowa time) at the Hard Rock Hotel in Riviera Maya, Mexico.

'Statistically, we have been really good with Kathleen in the game,' Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder said in a telephone interview from Mexico on Tuesday.

A 5-foot-9 guard afrom LaGrange Park, Ill., Doyle is averaging 6.2 points per game. She'll replace freshman Makenzie Meyer in the starting lineup, joining Ally Disterhoft, Megan Gustafson, Tania Davis and Bre Cera.

Bluder said that Davis, the Hawkeyes' point guard, 'has her work cut out for her' in the next two games; Iowa faces James Madison (2-2) at 8 p.m. Friday.

'She'll be playing against two really good point guards, and (UCLA's) Jordin Canada is one of the best in the nation,' Bluder said.

Canada is the reigning Pac-12 player of the week.

The Hawkeyes arrived in Cancun on Monday, a day after they suffered their first loss of the season — 66-64 to South Dakota State. When Bluder called Tuesday, the team was on an excursion to underground sinkholes.

'To be able to take them to some places they've never been, it's a lot of fun,' she said.

The participating teams will attend a banquet Wednesday night, then it's time to get to business Thursday and Friday.

Bluder always prides her teams on scoring balance, but this year's team has been carried primarily by Disterhoft (18.2 ppg), Gustafson (17.0 ppg, 10.0 rpg) and Davis (9.2 ppg).

'Those three have been key components,' Bluder said. 'We want to get more of them involved in the offense. We are trying to encourage that.'

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