After another strong and successful regular season during the 2025-26 women’s college basketball season, the Iowa Hawkeyes were bounced from the NCAA Women’s Tournament at home inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena as a No. 2 seed before even making the Sweet 16.
While that left a sour taste, it also seems to have awoken a sense of urgency in the Iowa coaching staff, led by head coach Jan Jensen. Iowa needed to add more top-end talent, and they did that via the transfer portal.
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Jensen swung big in the portal and landed Dani Carnegie, the guard from Georgia. Her commitment to Iowa infuses talent in the backcourt and is viewed as one of ESPN’s top transfer portal commitments in women’s college basketball, sitting at the No. 3 best player in the transfer portal rankings.
3. Dani Carnegie, 5-9, G, So.
Transferring to Iowa (from Georgia)
This season Carnegie was one of the SEC’s most impactful transfers. In 2026-27, she’s likely to do the same in the Big Ten. Carnegie’s move to Iowa reunites her with former Georgia Tech teammate Chazadi Wright and will give the Hawkeyes one of the conference’s best backcourts. Carnegie’s ability to create shots for herself and teammates is something Iowa has lacked since the departure of Caitlin Clark. Her 18.4 points in SEC games was good for fourth in the league. – Charlie Creme, ESPN
After some guard departures via the transfer portal, Carnegie gives Iowa proven talent in Carnegia, who can step in and be a true scorer from day one, like she was at Georgia.
Appearing in 61 games over two years, with 32 starts, Carnegie is coming off a career year, in which she averaged 17.8 points per game, 5.3 rebounds, and 3.2 assists, while shootings 42.7% from the field and 35.4% from the three-point line, to go with a strong 83.3% shooting effort from the free throw line.
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This article originally appeared on Hawkeyes Wire : Iowa women’s basketball with one of ESPN’s top transfer portal players
