Iowa 2023-24


Interesting tidbit.

Is that too honest? As in, yes, that's probably true but you can't say that out loud?
She does coach one of the highest NIL earners in college sports. She is telling other recruits I can't help you...any money Caitlin makes she brokers the deals on her own.
With her comment she is trying to deflect criticism for not adding a significant player to the roster. Just own it. Don't try to be funny with an excuse. You failed, don't play the victim.
It's a bad look to your present team as well.
Just say we explored it, we didn't find the right fit.
Also arrogantly dissing 990 other girls.
Bottom line: Bluder failed. Don't blame somebody or something else for it. Also, they are supposed to be the premier program for developing bigs....develop the solution in your post factory.
 
Last edited:

Chances seem possible to likely that Caitlin Clark plays two more years of college basketball because it would be the highest earning year of her life.
The Lynx seem as though they could finish poorly this year with high draft odds. But Paige Bueckers and Caitlin both may still be in college for another year, I would think.
Do the Lynx just continue to lose enough to draft high three years running?
Do Paige and Caitlin transfer to play for the Minnesota Gophers and start to build a greater corporate and fan foundation for their pro careers close to home with the Lynx?
Do the Lynx and Gophers have a partnership strategy to make this happen?
If you don't have any dreams then they won't come true.
And it’s free -

 


IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Iowa will attempt to set the all-time women’s basketball attendance record when it hosts DePaul in an outdoor exhibition at 69,000-seat Kinnick Stadium on Oct. 15, the school announced Thursday.

“I know if anyone can do it, Hawkeye fans can and will,” coach Lisa Bluder said.

The state of Iowa has a long history of supporting girls and women’s basketball. The Hawkeyes were second nationally in attendance last season with an average of 11,143 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.


The women’s basketball attendance record of 29,619 was set in the 2002 national title game between Connecticut and Oklahoma in San Antonio’s Alamodome.

Proceeds from ticket sales will go to the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital. A portion of the tickets will be sold for $20 and honored if the game is moved indoors because of inclement weather. Tickets sold for $10 are non-refundable.

The Hawkeyes were 31-7 and national runners-up to LSU last season, and they return Collegiate Women’s Athlete of the Year Caitlin Clark. DePaul was 16-17.


“So much for closed-door scrimmages,” DePaul coach Doug Bruno said. “We are thrilled to be able to play Iowa, the reigning national runner-ups in a game for charity inside Kinnick Stadium. The opportunity to compete against Caitlin Clark, one of the best players in the country, will be a great test for our team.”
 


Iowa Rivals with some lineup thoughts

Big vs. Small Lineup​

The biggest question for Iowa’s 2023-2024 team is who will play the majority of minutes at the 4 and 5 positions.

For the past three seasons, Iowa played with a smaller lineup where McKenna Warnock played the 4 and spent most of her time offensively on the perimeter. Before her–during the Megan Gustafson era–Iowa utilized a two post system with Chase Coley or Hannah Stewart playing the 4 while Gustafson played the 5.

Those teams were rigid in their systems. With Warnock, Iowa didn’t play with a second post. During the Gustafson era, Iowa didn’t play with a smaller 4.

The 2023-2024 Hawkeyes, by contrast, will switch between bigger and smaller lineups. In the bigger lineup, Addison O’Grady will likely start at the 5, with Hannah Stuelke at the 4.
In the smaller lineup, O’Grady or Stuelke will play the 5, and Kate Martin or Sydney Affolter will slide over and play as a smaller 4.

The key to how often Iowa plays with the bigger lineup is O’Grady. O’Grady probably won’t ever be the lethal low-post scoring option that Gustafson or Monika Czinano were, but she is an efficient finisher and offers stronger rebounding and better defense than Czinano did.
O’Grady had a very strong European tour. She went 8-8 from the floor in her first game, added 9 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 blocks in 17 minutes in the second game, and finished with a 12 point, 10 rebound double-double in game three.
 




Lisa Bluder at B1G media day:

October 9, 2023​


Lisa Bluder


Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Iowa Hawkeyes​

Women's Head Coach​


LISA BLUDER: Thank you. Darn, it feels pretty good to be back in this building. I have to be honest. Good vibes in here.

Think back six months ago, we turned this place into black and gold Carver north. Pretty fun. Hope it'll be a fun time in six more months for sure.

We're excited about the season like everybody else, and this kind of kicks it all off for us.

I was kind of surprised, actually, to see the rankings. This conference is so good. There's going to be so many surprises.

It's loaded. This conference is loaded, definitely.

We lost 40 percent of our starting lineup, some really experienced players that were four-year starters for us. It's tough to replace those two.

But we do have this young girl coming, maybe you know her, Caitlin I think something. She's pretty good, too.

We'll obviously build around her. We do return Gabbie Marshall, Kate Martin, as well, in the starting lineup, and I think Molly Davis is playing really well, I think Hannah Stuelke is playing really well for us.

We have a really good schedule, a very challenging non-conference schedule, and you have to have that to prepare yourself for the grueling Big Ten conference.

We're going to challenge ourselves for sure. 11 of our games on our schedule right now are against top-25 opponents, so we will be challenging ourselves.

But when they come into Carver, it's going to be one hostile environment. We have sold out every single game, every single ticket, so we're excited about having -- we want to get that national attendance record. We will be hosting in six days in Kinnick Stadium. We've sold about 48,000 tickets to play in Kinnick Stadium.

That will be the first televised women's basketball game of the year, and we want to kick it off in a good fashion.

Q. Every year I come in and I talk with Caitlin about her commitment to Special Olympics, and for the last few years it's been Monika and her commitment to DEI. What was the secret sauce for a winning team who does so well academically, on the court, and in the community?

LISA BLUDER: You know, it goes back to recruiting, right? It goes to recruiting young women that want to win, also want to graduate, and they want to be good role models.

You have to want all those things to be a successful student-athlete at the University of Iowa.

I'm proud of the women. This year we've already done a Habitat For Humanity women's build. We've done numerous visits to the children's hospital, which by the way, all the proceeds from our game next week will be benefiting the children's hospital, and we're really excited to do the wave at the end of the first quarter to all the kids in the hospital just like they do at the football games.

Q. What were your takeaways from the Nebraska volleyball match in the stadium, and how excited are you for your match just knowing what Nebraska could do with theirs?

LISA BLUDER: Yeah, I could tell you watched the volleyball game when you calls theirs a match. We're very excited. I obviously watched the match at Lincoln. It was amazing.

Probably one of the best women's sporting events we've ever had, and elevated all women's sports. That was thrilling.

We had planned this before we knew that they were going to be doing that at Nebraska, and I'm just thrilled that we had a staff, administration, that backed us in this, because as you may know, there's a lot of extra work that goes into putting a basketball court in a football field, and I'm just so proud of our administration that they've been behind us 100 percent with this.

But yeah, what they did at Nebraska was phenomenal.

Q. Several of the coaches that preceded you this morning talked about being kept up at night by that Clark individual on your roster. To you, which teams and/or players in the Big Ten are giving you concern as we start the season?

LISA BLUDER: I mean, there's so many. I look at Ohio State's roster, it is just loaded. I've always been a big Jacy fan. She is just tremendous. I look at Indiana's roster. I got to spend some time with Mackenzie Holmes at the Wooden Awards this year. She is spectacular.

You could go on and on.

I think every team has a secret weapon that they're going to build their team around that are just so good.

But yeah, it's an amazing conference.

Q. Everyone talks about the cadence and fluidity on the floor, and you said you're missing 40 percent of your starters, but when you really boil everything down, it comes down to mentality. How much of last year's success carries over to this year, and how do you kind of gauge how to just look forward and not necessarily look back?

LISA BLUDER: Yeah, we've turned the page. But I want my players to understand what we accomplished last year. I mean, that championship game was the most watched television audience ever in women's basketball, and I want them to relish in that. I want them to know it's possible, because if you don't know it's possible, it's hard to accomplish it.

I want them to know it's possible, but absolutely, we've turned the page. We're moving on. We know this is a whole different basketball team.

But we did have our foreign tour this year, and allowed us to have the 10 extra practices, and by the way, if you've never been to Croatia, I highly recommend it. Put it on your bucket list. It was tremendous
 


IOWA CITY, Iowa – The nationally-ranked Iowa women’s basketball team defeated Clarke University, 122-49, in its second exhibition game on Sunday afternoon inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Sophomore Hannah Stuelke made a statement in her first start of the season inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena, going 11-15 from the field to finish with 27 points and 10 rebounds. National Player of the Year Caitlin Clark finished with 24 points and nine assists. Clark went 9-of-13 from the floor.

The Hawkeyes jumped on top in the first quarter scoring 30 points and tallying 13 boards. Iowa kept the momentum in the second going on a 21-0 run to take a 62-18 lead at half.

Iowa held the Pride to less than 15 points in all quarters. 11 Hawkeyes entered the scoring column, four recording double digits, and all available Hawkeyes recorded a stat.

Sharon Goodman was close to notching a double-double and recorded 14 points and nine rebounds. The Hawkeyes shot 61.7% as a team from the floor. Iowa outscored Clarke 88-26 in the paint.

QUOTING P. SUE BECKWITH, MD, HEAD COACH LISA BLUDER
“I thought we did some good things today. Obviously, we had the size advantage but we took advantage of it. I thought we ran the floor well too. Hannah and Sharon both had great games. We shared the ball well and had 30 assists. This was it, and now we are getting ready for the home opener on Nov. 6.”
 


Michael Voepel:

A THUNDERSTORM HELD off as Caitlin Clark finished her celebrity round of golf in the John Deere Classic Pro-Am, the sun alternating between withering hot and slipping behind rumbling clouds on a steamy July afternoon.

Clark signed autographs and posed for countless photos as she navigated the crowd in Silvis, Illinois -- about an hour east of the University of Iowa -- like a longtime pro golfer.

Near the end of the round, the Iowa Hawkeyes point guard, clad in a white shirt, black shorts and yellow and white Nikes, crouched at the front of the tee box and leaned on her club. Awake since before sunrise, Clark made the briefest concession to what had become another long day in the spotlight: She yawned.

Being Caitlin Clark has become a full-time job
 






Caitlin Clark grabbed the pass and took a beat. Seconds were ticking away toward the end of the third quarter, with Iowa already up big over Minnesota. But Clark saw one of her favorite targets, Hannah Stuelke, obtain prime position between her defender and the basket in the low post.

From well beyond the 3-point arc, Clark fired a perfect pass to Stuelke, who sank the layup and drew a foul, in the process giving Clark her 902nd career assist -- a new Big Ten record.

Stuelke, a 6-foot-2 sophomore forward playing a larger role for the Hawkeyes this season, has been featured in many of Clark's highlight reels, often as the recipient of her awe-inspiring dimes, including a no-look, behind-the-back pass Wednesday against Purdue.

But not always. In fact, in the game-winning play Iowa ran to beat Michigan State last week, Stuelke received the rock at the top of the 3-point arc, and although the ball was momentarily knocked away, she recovered it in time to pitch it to Clark for her now-famous step-back, logo 3-pointer with 0.1 seconds remaining.

Clark is within reach of repeating as national player of the year as she propels the Hawkeyes to a 16-1 record despite losing two multi-year starters, most prominently the Robin to her Batman in Monika Czinano. But Stuelke, the Hawkeyes' second-leading scorer and second-leading rebounder, has helped Clark establish Iowa as a contender again this season. And for the Hawkeyes to make it back to the Final Four in what could be Clark's final year in Iowa City, they'll need Stuelke to continue on her current trajectory.

"As [Stuelke] goes, we can go," Iowa associate head coach Jan Jensen told ESPN. "The higher she takes her game, the higher it's going to help us go."
 


Clark developed her elite passing ability in part by playing varsity soccer for Dowling Catholic High in West Des Moines, Iowa. Her freshman season, she was named to the 2017 Class 3A All-Iowa girl’s soccer team by the Des Moines Register. Clark stopped playing soccer after her sophomore season to focus on basketball, but she picked up a spatial awareness and an understanding of how to work with tough angles, according to those who have studied her game.
 





Dawn Plitzuweit was watching.

But then, who wasn't? Iowa star Caitlin Clark scored 49 points Thursday in a blowout of Michigan at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in front of yet another sellout crowd. Her long pull-up three 2:12 into the game made her the NCAA's highest-scoring women's player ever, surpassing what Kelsey Plum did at Washington.

"That was impressive," said Plitzuweit, the University of Minnesota women's basketball coach. "What she's done…I think I speak on behalf of women's basketball, being involved in it. What she's doing for the sport is absolutely phenomenal. It is.''

The Clark show has sold out visiting arenas all around the Big Ten. Minnesota will be no different, with the Hawkeyes visiting the Gophers on Feb. 28 and returning one week later for the conference tournament at Target Center.

Iowa's game at Williams Arena has been a sellout since early December. You cannot buy a ticket from the U, only on the secondary market:

And it will cost you.

On StubHub Friday morning, the cheapest asking price for a ticket was a single seat available in the upper level above one end of the court. The asking price was $148.

The highest asking price were tickets close to the court in the lower bowl. One person was asking more than $1,500 per ticket.

For the Big Ten tournament, which runs March 6-10, an all-session general admission ticket costs $75 with tax and fees pushing the total cost to $131
 

Maybe Coyle can work out a plan to calculate the difference in a sold out BARN every night compared to now and use that for NIL to lure CC to MN for her 5th year :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 


Over the last few weeks, Pearl Moore has fielded several interview requests from reporters around the country. Many of them suddenly are interested in the 5’7” guard from Florence, S.C., who once played college ball at Francis Marion University, a Division II school in the 1970s.

Last weekend we caught up with Moore while she was celebrating her sister’s birthday away from home. She took time and spoke with us on Feb. 16, a day after Caitlin Clark’s new NCAA scoring record was set.

The Iowa star is still behind Moore’s all-time scoring career mark of 4,056 over four years (1975-79) when the three-point line didn’t exist at the time and women played with the same basketball as the men’s—today women play with a smaller ball than their male counterparts.

Moore is third on the college basketball men’s and women’s all-time scoring list, the only woman with at least 4,000 career points, well ahead of Pete Maravich (3,667 at LSU, 1967-70) who is in ninth place. She averaged over 30 points a game each season at Francis Marion and once hit for 60 points in a game.

“If I was good, I probably would have never missed a shot,” joked Moore.
 





Top Bottom