McCabe's final year was cut short due to injury, but her leadership was crucial for a young Hawkeye team.
As the years went by, only three players from Iowa women's basketball's memorable Final Four runs with Caitlin Clark remained.
Kylie Feuerbach and Hannah Stuelke were the notable names that came out of those legendary names, but you're forgetting about one more player - Taylor McCabe.
McCabe didn't put up the numbers or have as many memorable games as some of the other stars of this magnificent era of Iowa women's basketball, but you simply can't write the remarkable story of this program's rise in the 2020s without mentioning McCabe.
The ending of McCabe's career was brutal, but she still made the most of it and helped her young squad off the court.
Without further adieu, here's McCabe's 2025-26 season grade:
The rundown
McCabe may go down as one of the most predictable athletes in Iowa women's basketball history, but by no means is that a slight on McCabe.
Each time McCabe stepped on the floor, opposing coaches knew what she was going to do - shoot three-pointers. Very rarely did McCabe ever score from inside the arc, and even when she scored breakaway layups in transition, the crowd in Carver-Hawkeye Arena couldn't believe what they were witnessing.
That's exactly the role McCabe played in 2025-26. The majority of her shots came from the outside, where she connected a career-low season clip of 37.4%. That would have been a disappointing figure if she played the whole season, but her senior campaign and college career was ultimately cut short due to an ACL injury against Ohio State on Jan. 25.
Though her career came to a difficult close, the numbers speak for themselves. McCabe is tied for the program lead in three-point shooting percentage (.407), and is 10th all-time in total triples made (172).
The career numbers will always make her a beloved player in this program's history, but again, this article is about what she did this year. There's no doubt that her shooting presence could've helped Iowa overcome a disastrous outside shooting performance in March, but McCabe was far too inconsistent at times during the season.
McCabe's penultimate game against Maryland on Jan. 22 - 12 points, 4-for-8 from distance - was one of her best performances in conference play, but if you look up-and-down the stat sheet, McCabe was taking a high volume of threes and missing most of them.
3-for-11 against Michigan State. 1-for-5 against Oregon. 1-for-9 against Penn State. 2-for-7 against Northwestern.
When you're a three-point specialist, your job is to make threes. Iowa went on to win all of these games, but McCabe certainly wasn't the reason why. Credit McCabe for improving her work on the glass and her overall defense, but when you struggle to live up to your main title, it's difficult to grade.
McCabe deserves plenty of credit for being a strong leader in the locker room both before and after her injury, but when it came to offensive production, the numbers just weren't there.
Either way, McCabe will forever go down as a memorable piece of the golden age of Iowa women's basketball.
Grade: B-
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HawkeyeRoundtable publisher Brad Schultz has covered the Iowa Hawkeyes since 2023. To send him story ideas, scoops, or criticize his writing, reach him at bradschultz@roundtable.io