Former high school teammates Addison O’Grady, Lauren Betts reunite when Hawkeyes host No. 3 UCLA

IOWA CITY -- Imagine facing a front line of 6-foot-7 and 6-foot-4.

In high school basketball.

High school girls’ basketball.

That’s what unfortunate opponents of the Grandview Wolves had to deal with for three seasons.

Lauren Betts and Addison O’Grady.

“We tried to recruit both of them,” Iowa Coach Jan Jensen said. “It’s so rare that a team has that kind of size. Addi is such a pretty passer, and she got a lot of throws into (Betts).”

O’Grady graduated from Grandview -- a high school in Aurora, Colo., an eastern suburb of Denver -- in 2021. Betts, the following year.

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The Wolves won a 6A state championship in O’Grady’s freshman year (2018), and another in Betts’ senior year (2022).

In 2019, together, they lost in the championship game. In 2020, Grandview returned to the title game, which was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the run ended in the semifinals.

“Who has two girls at 6-4-plus?” said O’Grady, now a senior at Iowa.

O’Grady and Betts will reunite Sunday, when Iowa hosts No. 3 UCLA in a Big Ten women’s game.

Tipoff is 1 p.m. at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

“I’m super excited,” O’Grady said. “I never really played against Lauren other than in (high school) practice. It’s going to be a lot of fun. When they expanded the Big Ten, it finally gave me a chance to play against people I played against in school.”

And when they expanded the Big Ten, it further fortified the league in terms of women’s hoops, particularly with the arrival of front-runners UCLA (25-1, 13-1) and USC (24-2, 14-1).

The Hawkeyes (18-8, 8-7) tripped USC on Feb. 2, and will look to generate similar magic Sunday.

Jensen gave the team a rare two-day break after its overtime loss at Ohio State on Monday afternoon.

“It came at a nice time,” Jensen said. “But I suspect the majority of them were in the gym anyway.”

“Two days off, it was great. Our bodies were exhausted,” Hannah Stuelke said. “I cleaned my room (Thursday), caught up on my homework.”

Betts came to UCLA in the summer of 2023, transferring from Stanford. She is averaging 19.7 points and 9.7 rebounds per game, shooting 61.3 percent from the field.

She missed two games with a mild injury to her right foot, but returned for Thursday’s game against Illinois and scored 22 points and six blocks.

“We’re going to have to box out against her,” Stuelke said. “That’s going to be a challenge.”

On the other hand ...

“I think I can beat her up and down the court, for sure,” Stuelke added.

Serving as Stuelke’s backup in the paint, O’Grady is the Hawkeyes’ third-leading scorer (10.8 ppg) and shoots at a 64.6-percent clip.

“I know some of (Betts’) tendencies,” O’Grady said. “She’s gotten a lot better in college, but so have I.”

At Ohio State, the Hawkeyes scurried back from a 12-point deficit in the final 90 seconds to force overtime, but the 86-78 defeat ended a six-game win streak.

“We were so close,” O’Grady said. “It reinforces that we can play with anybody.”

Comments: jeff.linder@thegazette.com