By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

Iowa’s women’s basketball team will head into a West Coast swing of two games that will mean plenty in the Big Ten standings dealing with the news that one of its starters will miss the rest of the season.

But coach Jan Jensen said on Tuesday that she knows who will replace senior Taylor McCabe in the starting lineup, going with freshman Addie Deal.

It’s something Jensen knows Deal can handle.

“Addie’s weathered a lot,” Jensen said. “You get a lot of questions. ‘Can she handle this?’ Can she handle this?’ She’s doing a great job. There’s no question she’ll meet the moment.”

McCabe was injured on the opening play on Sunday’s 91-70 home win over Ohio State, tearing the ACL in her left knee. Deal went into the game as McCabe was carried off the court, and finished with a season-high 20 points.

“I’ve just always knew what she’s capable of doing,” Jensen said. “But I think she’s really been welcoming. She’s a hard worker. She’s a good IQ player, watching the film and all the things. She’s always eager and wants to be on the floor and wants to do well, so that’s never been a challenge or an issue.”

Jensen called McCabe’s injury “heartbreaking.”

“Your heart just aches for because it’s not just a season-ending (injury), but it’s a career-ending (one),” Jensen said.

“It just is the toughest. Every coach, any sport, every level, (injuries are) just so hard, especially with kids who kind of give their heart and soul to it,” Jensen added. And Taylor was just a kid that … she’s the epitome of a Hawkeye, she’s an excellent student, just a great young woman. And in this culture, she stayed the course. She was willing to be developed her freshman year, her sophomore year, and just held strong. Such a great example.”

McCabe averaged 8.1 points this season, and currently leads the Hawkeyes with 49 3-pointers.

Jensen knows the loss of McCabe will affect the Hawkeyes’ depth. It will also mean more minutes for sophomore Taylor Stremlow, who has started seven games this season.

“They’re just a really good bunch of kids, so there’s no really extra conversations needed,” Jensen said. “It’s that ‘next person in’ philosophy. They’re a good, focused group. Mostly, the conversations are the same as they’ve always been — how are we going to defend, what are we going to need to do? We’ll have to make some tweaks. Taylor was an excellent defender. She never got the credit she deserved with how she could defend, and her 3-point shooting is stellar. But we have other things that we can now will highlight, and we’ll just do things a little bit differently. So that’s mostly going to be the conversations. But as far as that next person in, no problem. I’m very confident in everybody that’s on our bench.”

Iowa (18-2 overall, 9-0 Big Ten) will play at USC (11-9, 3-6) on Thursday, then play at No. 3 UCLA (19-1, 9-0) on Sunday.

“I haven’t really put any more emphasis on this road trip,” Jensen said. “It’s just, ‘Control the controllables.’ And you can’t control the fact we had to go to LA and we got an extra day, so we just gotta do what’s gotten us to this point.”

Photo: Freshman Addie Deal will move into Iowa’s starting lineup for the weekend road trip to the West Coast. (Photo from Iowa Athletic Communications)