Iowa Takes Home Two B1G Weekly Awards

The Iowa Hawkeyes can do no wrong at this point in the season, as proven by another pair of weekly award winners.

Ava Heiden took home the B1G player of the week, while Addie Deal won her second straight B1G freshman of the week honor.

Heiden and Deal have no choice but to continue to play at such a high level after the team learned senior guard Taylor McCabe will be out for the rest of the season.

That's not an injury anyone wanted to learn about after the Ohio State game. Now No. 8 in the nation, Iowa has their toughest test coming up at the end of the week.

B1G Player Of The Week: Ava Heiden

B1G Business 🤩@ava_heiden is the Big Ten Player of the Week! pic.twitter.com/TfXZ3dqxH6
— Iowa Women's Basketball (@IowaWBB) January 26, 2026

Last week, Stuelke took home this honor. This week, Stuelke was honored in a different way. After taking home the Naismith National Player of the Week, the B1G focused their attention on Heiden. It's not like Stuelke couldn't win both, but it's great to see Heiden have some more attention thrown her way.

Heiden leads the team with 16.4 points per game and is a focal point of the offense. Her rebounds total continues to climb, currently at 7.7 per game. She has at least five rebounds in her last nine games. In that stretch, she's grabbed eight or more five times.

Iowa Hawkeyes center Ava Heiden — Iowa center Ava Heiden (5) turns toward the basket as Ohio State center Elsa Lemmilä (12) defends Jan. 25, 2026 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa. | Julia Hansen/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Coming off back-to-back games with nine made field goals, Heiden is doing her part to make sure this offense operates as smoothly as possible. She's shooting an impressive 63.5% from the field, which is up over seven percent from her freshman campaign.

B1G Freshman Of The Week: Addie Deal

She's at it again 👀@deal_addie is the Big Ten Freshman of the Week! pic.twitter.com/QTzs7uLDYL
— Iowa Women's Basketball (@IowaWBB) January 26, 2026

Speaking of freshman, this is quite a big deal. Iowa's freshman forward has won this award back-to-back after not winning it at all in her young career. Deal is far from the team's leading scorer, but a 20-point effort against the No. 12 team in the nation will help turn some heads.

Deal set her career high in points against a strong Buckeyes team, one that increased in the AP Poll despite losing to Iowa by 21 points. Now that McCabe is out, head coach Jan Jensen will have plenty more minutes to come Deal's way.

Fresh off winning this award the week prior, Deal is looking for a three-peat. Seeing as she's dropped 20 and 18 points in two of her last four games, the sky truly is the limit for this California native. One can only imagine what she'll do in her home state against the No. 2 team.

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