Iowa women’s basketball’s 2026-27 non-conference calendar is packed with familiar names, a couple of firsts and a few heavyweight tests that should tell a lot about the Hawkeyes before Big Ten play arrives.
The 12-game slate begins with an Oct. 29 exhibition against Maryville at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, then the games count for real on Nov. 2 when Towson visits Iowa City. From there, the Hawkeyes get their first new opponent of the season Nov. 5 against Eastern Illinois, one of two teams Iowa will see for the first time.
The biggest spotlight early on comes four days later in New England, where Iowa faces UConn on Nov. 8.
That matchup will be the fifth time the programs have met in the last five seasons, and it has already included two NCAA tournament clashes. Iowa won the 2024 Final Four meeting.
Another notable date lands on Nov. 15, when the Hawkeyes take on Vanderbilt and high-scoring Mikayla Blakes in Sioux City at the Tyson Center. It is listed as a sort-of home game for Iowa.
The Hawkeyes’ in-state schedule is spread across three different stops. Northern Iowa comes to Iowa City on Nov.
12, Drake hosts Iowa on Dec. 1, and Iowa State visits on Dec. 9.
The other home game against an in-state opponent gives the Hawkeyes two of the three inside the state at home.
There are also several other home dates on the board: Montana State on Nov. 19, Southern University on Dec. 13 and Northern Illinois on Dec.
- Montana State is another first-time opponent for Iowa.
Iowa will also head to the Bahamas for two games in the Baha Mar Classic from Nov. 23-25 against Utah and Toledo, with the specific dates still to be matched with those opponents.
The Big Ten schedule is still to come, but the full conference slate includes home games against Indiana, Maryland, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, Rutgers, Wisconsin, UCLA and USC, plus road trips to Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State and Washington. The Big Ten tournament is set for March 3-7 in Las Vegas.
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The one area Butt left open was the quarterback situation, which is the natural place for skepticism to linger before the season settles in. Still, his overall view was that Iowa looks well-prepared and has the kind of structure that can let it outperform preseason expectations, a familiar theme for a program that has often been more difficult to measure from the outside than the rankings suggest. [Read more 🡒]