From slumping to surging, Hawkeyes seek to continue their climb Thursday at Minnesota

IOWA CITY — Suddenly, it feels as if the wind is at the their back.

Three straight victories — including a signature-win shocker — will do that for a team.

“Coming off that game (a 76-69 upset win over No. 4 USC on Sunday), we feel really good,” Hannah Stuelke said. “It propels us to the next game ... what we need to do to win.”

The Iowa women’s basketball team is heading north in the Big Ten standings (the upper division isn’t that far away), and north to Minnesota.

Tipoff Thursday is 7 p.m. at Williams Arena in Minneapolis.

“We understand the mission,” Iowa Coach Jan Jensen said Wednesday. “It wasn’t that long ago that we were coming up short.

“Going through adversity, when you get a little further away from it, you see the good in it. But you don’t want to go back to it.”

Iowa (15-7 overall, 5-6 Big Ten) has climbed to 12th place in the league, and is just two games back of a four-team fifth-place logjam.

A double-bye in the Big Ten tournament — reserved for the top four teams — is most likely out of reach. But a top-nine finish, which would keep the Hawkeyes out of playing the first day of the five-day tournament, “is realistic,” Jensen said.

“There are so many 50/50 games left. If we can get those to fall our way, yeah, I’d love that,” she said.

Thursday certainly qualifies as a toss-up, even though the Hawkeyes have won 10 straight games in the series, including 108-60 last year in Iowa City.

Minnesota (18-5, 6-5) represents the next rung in the Hawkeyes’ ladder. The Gophers have lost three of their last four games, but two of those were on the road against UCLA and USC.

Still, this is shaping up as the Gophers’ first NCAA team in seven years. Two reasons — they are third in the Big Ten in defensive scoring average (57.6 points per game allowed) and they are No. 1 in terms of fewest turnovers (10.2 per contest).

“(Guard) Amaya (Battle) is really smart,” Jensen said. “She doesn’t make many mistakes. As a team, they play within themselves. They’re not there to make the wow, pizzazz play and test the odds.”

Iowa, on the other hand, is allowing 66.1 points per game, which represents its best defensive season since 2007-08.

“We can go through some stretches in which we’re not scoring,” Jensen said. “Defense has been the reason we’ve been in every single game.”

Comments: jeff.linder@thegazette.com