Iowa women’s basketball to face Tennessee next season in Women’s Champions Classic

A little over a month after announcing Iowa women’s basketball would be part of the inaugural Women’s Champions Classic field next season, the matchups for the event have officially been set.

The Hawkeyes will face Tennessee on Dec. 7 inside Brooklyn's Barclays Center, with Louisville and UConn meeting on the other end of the doubleheader. The two games will air on the FOX broadcast network with specific details still to come. Tickets for the event go on sale at 9 a.m. CT Thursday.

The game won’t include Caitlin Clark, so it will be an important early-season test for an Iowa group looking to establish its own identity. Key players such as Hannah Stuelke, Sydney Affolter, Kylie Feuerbach and others should return as the Hawkeyes look to begin the post-Clark era strong.

Tennessee, meanwhile, is a No. 6 seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament but will lose six seniors at season’s end. That includes leading scorer Rickea Jackson, set to go only a few spots behind Clark in next month’s WNBA Draft.

Tennessee is 2-1 all-time against Iowa, but the Hawkeyes and Lady Vols haven’t met since the Elite Eight in 1993. Iowa’s 72-56 win clinched the Hawkeyes’ most recent Final Four appearance until Clark led the program back there last season.

Dargan Southard is a sports trending reporter and covers Iowa athletics for the Des Moines Register and HawkCentral.com. Email him at msouthard@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Dargan_Southard.