By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Jan Jensen thought her team needed a “confidence builder.”

Rewriting a couple of records, including one that stood for more than 50 years, certainly can do that.

Iowa’s 119-43 win over Evansville on Sunday afternoon at Carver-Hawkeye Arena was as convincing as a victory can get. Six Hawkeyes scored in double figures, it was the highest scoring game in program history — the previous was 115, also against Evansville, in the 2022-23 season —  and the final margin was the largest in program history, surpassing a 68-point win over Cornell in the 1974-75 season.

Iowa (2-0) is ranked 21st nationally, but Jensen, in her second season as a head coach, knows she is going to be searching for the right combinations between the veterans on her team and the newcomers. Getting a win like this, she said, can leave a good feeling.

“We’re learning a lot,” Jensen said. “We’re growing a lot. I’ve told you guys the trajectory, I think, will typically be up, but it’s going to go every which way. We just have a lot of different people with a lot of different talents, and they have different paces of learning.”

“It’s an honor to get this win, with this many points,” said freshman center Layla Hays, who had a game-high 20 points. 

“Just going out there, playing freely, just going out there pushing the pace, making sure we see the bigs, and just doing the right things, making the right play. I think that’s what we did a lot today,” said sophomore guard Chazadi “Chit-Chat” Wright, who continued her steady play since transferring to Iowa in the offseason, finishing with career highs of 16 points and 10 assists.

This one wasn’t expected to be close, and when Iowa led 29-10 at the end of the first quarter — a 16-0 run helped build that margin — the only question was how much could the Hawkeyes score.

“I really talked about the beginning of the game — really earn a dominant performance, but kind of doing that every possession, and just trying to set a tone,” Jensen said. “And I really loved how we started out the game — I think they had 10 points at the (end of the) quarter. So I was really pleased with that response.”

Iowa built a 59-22 halftime lead, and then a 31-8 third quarter made it look like records were going to fall.

So much of the eruption of points came from the way the Hawkeyes’ offense ran so efficiently — Iowa had 31 assists on 42 field goals. The Hawkeyes shot 64.6% from the field for the game.

“That’s amazing,” Wright said of the assist number. “The way this team is just structured and organized, we love to pass the ball to each other and rather get the assists than the scores.”

“I feel like the biggest thing is we share the ball really well, and I think we all trust each other a lot,” Hays said. “Like, we can finish our shots — I trust my teammates if I’m going to kick the ball to them, they’re going to make their shot. So it’s just the trust and the selflessness of our team.”

Hays was able to thrive against the smaller Purple Aces (0-2). She was 9 of 11 from the field, showing the confidence that Jensen wants out of her post players.

“She had some mistakes,” Jensen said. “She put it on the floor sometimes. She wasn’t supposed to make a move right away — she was supposed to wait to look for a cutter, but she was just going for it. And that’s the breakthrough. That’s what I loved, is that she was confident enough to make a mistake because she was going for it, versus looking at you every time. ‘Was that right? Should I have done that?’ So for her, I think, to really kind of take it to them today, that was my favorite part. You could see kind of that size she has, and if we can continue to refine that and get her more and more confident in just the system, I think in time, she could be pretty good.”

“I would say I was a little more physical,” Hays said. “I’m trying to figure out this role, but most of it is just correlating effort into my physicality.If I have more effort, then I become more physical, and just making sure that I’m leaving my all on the court.”

Ava Heiden had 14 points, Hannah Stuelke had 13, Taylor McCabe had 12 and Addie Deal had 11 for the Hawkeyes.

Photo: Iowa’s Layla Hays (left) battles with Evansville’s Mireia Mustaros inside in the second half. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)