January 15, 2025
Iowa’s struggles, Minnesota’s impressive play among early Big Ten surprises in 2025
The post-Caitlin Clark era has hit a brief rough patch
Halfway through January, much of the Big Ten season lies ahead. Most teams still have 12 or 13 conference games remaining. But, we’ve seen enough basketball to start to piece together some of the trends so far this season. Iowa has worked to build a new-look team without Caitlin Clark, Minnesota’s raced out to a fast start and Washington has impressed early in its new conference.
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Here’s a deeper dive into three of the Big Ten’s biggest surprises:
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Iowa hits the skids
On the one hand, perhaps it’s unfair to draw attention to the fact that the Hawkeyes are 2-4 in Big Ten play with three straight losses, considering the defeats have come to Michigan State (20 in NET), Maryland (18), Illinois (39) and Indiana (37). Even still, the Hawkeyes enjoy one of the best home-court advantages in the conference, and they’ve lost back-to-back conference games at home; that hasn’t happened since 2016.
Obviously losing Clark is the easy explanation for this. But beside her last season, Iowa had key experienced players: Kate Martin, Gabbie Marshall, Molly Davis and Sydney Affolter. All but Affolter have graduated, and the lone returner has seen her numbers drop a bit from shooting 55.2% from the field last season to 45.1% this year. Her rebound and assist numbers are up slightly, but the two-point drop in scoring average hasn’t helped an offense looking for some new contributors
Besides Lucy Olsen (16.4 ppg), Hannah Stuelke (12.8 ppg) and Addison O’Grady (12.5 ppg), the Hawkeyes have struggled to find consistency, particularly from their guard depth. There’s still plenty of time for Jan Jensen‘s younger players to grow as the season progresses, but looking at the standings and seeing 2-4 Iowa is definitely a tad jarring given the success we’ve become accustomed to in Iowa City.
Ranked Minnesota!
The Golden Gophers might’ve fallen short at Maryland on Tuesday night, but this still looks like an NCAA Tournament-caliber team. In the preseason, I flagged them as an under-the-radar team to watch in head coach Dawn Plitzuweit’s second season, and they’ve raced out to a 16-2 start even though their star Mara Braun hasn’t played in a game since mid-November.
Minnesota just has so much scoring depth, with Annika Stewart, Grace Grocholski, Tori McKinney and Amaya Battle all averaging at least 10.1 points per game. This has helped make up for Braun’s absence, much like last season when the Gophers were also forced to play an extended stretch without their top player.
One caveat though: Minnesota’s 4-2 Big Ten start has included wins over Penn State (79), Wisconsin (101) and Rutgers (126), so we’ll inevitably know much more about just how good this team is by mid-February, after matchups with Michigan, USC, UCLA, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio State.
Washington’s offense takes a leap
The Huskies were the most overshadowed former Pac-12 team to join the conference this season, but like Minnesota, they’ve started the season on strong footing. They put up 90 points in a 19-point win over Northwestern and beat a strong Illinois team 84-75 on the road as well. Still, tougher upcoming matchups against many of the teams in the top half of the standings will clarify further if Washington will make a trip for the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017.
If it does, Elle Ladine and Sayvia Sellers will almost assuredly be major reasons why. Ladine turned in a career-best 40-point performance in that win over the Wildcats, and she leads the Huskies in scoring at 15.8 points per game. Sellers, meanwhile, isn’t far behind, averaging 15.6 points.
Perhaps the biggest surprise from the Huskies is their success shooting the ball from deep: No Big Ten team has a better 3-point shooting percentage than they do. Their success rate of 35.9% ranks 26th in the nation. Only one other Big Ten team (Maryland) ranks in the top 50, per Her Hoop Stats.
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Written by Eric Rynston-Lobel
Eric Rynston-Lobel has been a contributor to The Next since August 2022. He covered Northwestern women's basketball extensively in his four years as a student there for WNUR, previously worked as a sports reporter for the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire and now works as a freelancer based in Chicago.
