Jan Jensen<\/a> told the media on Thursday. \u201cNo matter how she might be playing or how she might be feeling, she\u2019s able to get that out of herself and make sure that everybody else is good.\u201d<\/p>\nIt\u2019s a roster that might, at times, need someone making sure that everyone else is good. A program that used to be built primarily on Midwest-grown talent now features players from across the country and beyond, including Georgia, California, Oregon, Alaska and the Dominican Republic. On top of that, they\u2019re a very young group, with nine underclassmen and one junior that has played just 42 career minutes. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe freshmen are working through some of their homesickness, and we\u2019ve got Alaska to Georgia to the Dominican and some right here at home with Journey (Houston) and Callie (Levin),\u201d said Jan Jensen. \u201cIt\u2019s been kind of fun melding all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, this is not a team that is void of veteran voices, with Kylie Feuerbach, Hannah Stuelke and Taylor McCabe returning and combining for 322 career games played. Those three all contribute in their own ways, while McCabe and Feuerbach have mentioned wanting to take on more vocal roles this season, but it\u2019s clear that Taylor Stremlow is cut from a similar cloth to the leaders that came before her.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe could have a 104-degree fever, just missed 17 shots in a row and broken up with her boyfriend, but you wouldn\u2019t know because she\u2019s so busy hyping you up,\u201d said Jensen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to try my best. I think showing up every day, being loud, trying to bring positive energy, is something I can definitely do,\u201d Stremlow said. \u201cIt\u2019s a controllable and during the best days, during the worst days, I think that\u2019s something that can help boost the mood and the team morale.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Summer-Practice-8-1-edited-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Getting through the best days and the worst, Stremlow says, is something she took away from her freshman season on a personal level and a team level. Although she carved out a solid role for herself, averaging 14.4 minutes per game, there were ups and downs. As for the team, the Hawkeyes endured a five-game losing streak but followed it up winning ten of their last 13 games heading into the NCAA Tournament. Taylor says she learned a lot from those experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s human. Everybody has good days, everybody has bad days, and it\u2019s just how you can play through them and leaning on your teammates,\u201d said Stremlow. \u201cI think that\u2019s something we did exceptionally well last season. Coach Jan talks about staying the course and I think that was something we did really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou learn what you can get through, and I think that\u2019s something that\u2019s so awesome about sports. It translates a lot into life. You\u2019re going to have highs and lows, and you\u2019ve got to ride them out.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a freshman, Taylor appeared in all 34 games, including two starts, averaging 6.5 points, 7.0 rebounds and 5.9 assists per 40 minutes. She rarely stood out in the scoring column, but earned minutes because of her ability to make winning plays and hustle plays that fired up the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I did well trying to make a difference where I could, making good passes, taking my shots when I had them, and so I just want to continue doing that. Maybe be a little smarter, little less risky sometimes,\u201d Stremlow said. \u201cMain focus is just to stay consistent. Work hard, get up a lot of shots, get stronger in the weight room, getting faster, I\u2019ve been working a lot on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur ceiling is really high and there\u2019s a lot of room to grow and a lot of success to be had with this group.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past few seasons, the Hawkeyes have had some exceptional veteran leaders, and each of them has…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,18829,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68,1707],"class_list":{"0":"post-20206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-iowa-womens-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaabasketball","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114757695269509484","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}