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Women's College Basketball

Beyond the Records: Iowa’s Legacy Lies in the Joy and Excitement Brought to Basketball

CLEVELAND — After arriving at her last post-game news conference in Iowa, Caitlin Clark found a seat in the center of the dais and took a seat. Kate Martin trailed closely after, and approximately twenty seconds later, coach Lisa Bluder joined the two of them.

Yes, there was disappointment. Iowa lost the NCAA title against undefeated South Carolina 87-75 for the second year in a row. However, this year’s secondary feeling was resignation rather than the rage they had against LSU the previous year. Even while these Hawkeyes gave it their all on the field, their performance fell short.

The Gamecocks were better in almost every area, and Iowa would have only won if they had played flawlessly.

When their teams perform to the best of their abilities, as good coaches expect, they can be happy with the outcome. Here, it was the situation. Indeed, there were a few items that had different outcomes, but that is true in both cases. Bluder, Clark, and Martin were therefore less sentimental and more contemplative when responding to questions. They handled their last press conference of the season in that manner. But contemplation and feeling go hand in hand when it comes to describing the Iowa women’s basketball team’s standing in college athletics.

The Hawkeyes (34-5) of this season broke numerous milestones, beginning with wins overall. In the annals of women’s basketball, Clark stands as the most decorated and statistically accomplished player. For many years to come, media guides will enumerate Clark’s incredible feats, but the numbers only reveal a portion of the tale. The feelings that this team evoked cannot be captured in those spiral-bound booklets. That marks the start of the recollections.

It is about the 10-year-old guys who think it is cool to be like Caitlin Clark and wear black T-shirts with the number 22 to games and school. It tells the story of 14-year-old girls who witnessed an athletic superstar who looked like them up close and who lived in Iowa, the Chicago suburbs, and other parts of the Midwest. It is about middle-aged ladies who, in honor of the upcoming generation of young women, have a closet full of player T-shirts. It concerns the older ladies who play basketball in high school and are seated close to the court at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, but who were born before they were eligible for sports scholarships.

Of course, it is also about Clark, who contributed to 37 of Iowa’s 39 games having sellout crowds. It concerns Bluder, who in 1984, at the age of 23, started coaching at St. Ambrose in Iowa. It is about Martin, who will quickly go from being a student to a mentor, improving everyone she advises in the process. It concerns Gabbie Marshall, who plans to travel to North Carolina at the end of the semester to complete her occupational therapy master’s degree. It concerns Molly Davis, who was unable to compete in the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments until the final 20 seconds of the regular season on Sunday due to an injured knee sustained in the regular-season finale.

It is about all the people who, despite never having set foot in Carver-Hawkeye Arena, made watching Iowa women’s basketball an appointment. There is no way to put a value on the smiles this crew brought to people’s faces.

“I don’t know if you can really describe and put it into words this legacy,” Martin said. “Honestly, I just hope we’ve brought a lot of people joy and we’ve brought a lot of people together.

“I hear all the time about how many friends people have made in the stands just watching our games. We sold out every single home game this year at Carver. And everywhere we go, we have fans lining up wanting Caitlin’s autograph, our autograph. More than anything, our legacy is what we’ve brought to the state of Iowa, I think, and all the joy and the fun.”

Viewership records were achieved on seven broadcast networks or streaming platforms with this team. When the Hawkeyes sold out of season tickets in August, they made Big Ten history as the first women’s basketball team to do so. In October, they broke the attendance record for women’s basketball at Kinnick Stadium with 55,646 spectators.

At least two thirds of the crowd in Cleveland at the Final Four wore black and gold. The intensity of the crowd’s support for these young ladies was remarkable, ranging from 118 decibels on Marshall’s first 3-pointer against Holy Cross to a constant 100+ dB during the game versus West Virginia.

“It’s meant everything to me,” said Marshall, who was in tears as she spoke at her locker. “I never thought I’d have people wearing my shirt with my name on it or signs in the crowd. Or people telling me I’m their favorite player. We have had eyes on us this whole time, so much attention.

“We wish, we hope that we can be role models for little boys and girls and just inspire them. I don’t think points or anything like that matters to any of us at the end of the day. It’s the people. It truly is the fans that have supported us. They’ve meant everything to us.”

Clark’s legacy is entwined with this team and distinct from it. Her NCAA record 3,951 points serve as the pinnacle atop a pile of achievements, making her the main attraction. Clark broke the previous record of Chamique Holdsclaw by scoring 30 points in her career finale to reach 491 points, and she did so in five less games.

Clark’s trademark 3-pointers and deft passing will be on show for the next fifteen years in the WNBA. Her stage presence will also. Her willingness to sign a plethora of autographs, however, is what really stands out. I was sitting in assistant coach Jan Jensen’s office one afternoon in February when someone knocked on the door. Clark asked if she could just take a quick break. She handed Jensen an autographed T-shirt and a handmade message for a little girl whose cancer had returned. Clark accomplished that without much fanfare all the time.

“I think people didn’t love us for our wins,” Clark said. “I think they loved us for the way we carried ourselves every single day, for the way we played for one another, the joy we played with, the passion we played with, the competitive spirit we had, the way we high-fived and celebrated our teammates’ success. That’s the reason people loved turning on Iowa women’s basketball.”

And then there is Bluder, who for some reason is not included in the excellent coaching dialogues. She is only surpassed by Bob Knight and Tom Izzo among all league basketball coaches and is the most successful coach in Big Ten women’s basketball history. She is ranked 10th in NCAA history with 884 career victories. Bluder’s team has made it to the national title game twice and the Elite Eight three times in the previous five seasons.

Bluder has set a standard for style on the floor but customizes it for her players. She has used a pure point guard (Sam Logic), a small forward (Ally Disterhoft), a center (Megan Gustafson), a fiery combo guard (Kathleen Doyle), and Clark to run her offense over the past ten seasons. Over that time, Bluder has coached four women who have scored 2,100 points in their careers: Clark, Gustafson, Monika Czinano, and Disterhoft. Of these, Gustafson and Clark have been named the consensus national player of the year.

Bluder’s resume is validated by the wins. One aspect of her legacy that gets overlooked is how regularly she makes the most of her talent. Her ability to control her ego may be her greatest asset.

“If you know Lisa, check her ego. Is there one?” Jensen said. “Everybody feels they can have a cup of coffee with her. She never lets you know how great she is. (The players) see Lisa and me mopping the floor, Jenni (Fitzgerald) mopping the floor, literally and figuratively. That’s how she leads. That’s how she lives.”

Bluder and her staff will review her severely reduced roster and make future plans in the following days. Marshall, Davis, Martin, and Clark are all dead. Starters Hannah Stuelke (14 points per game) and Sydney Affolter (8.4 points per game), along with reserves Kylie Feuerbach, Addison O’Grady, and Taylor McCabe, are among the notable returnees. Sixty-seven percent of the Hawkeyes’ points and fifty-two percent of their minutes are gone. Five freshmen, including four who are rated among ESPN’s top 100 recruits, help Iowa make up for those losses.

Additionally, there is always the transfer portal.

But after a long, demanding season, everyone will need some time to unwind. Before the pride and sorrow combine. Prior to the names being taken from the lockers above them. Before they realized how much they meant to each other, their state, and their sport. They will then realize how unique they were to a great number of individuals. They will then grinne.

“They should go out of here being sad that it’s over,” Jensen said, “but really happy that it happened.”

(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)

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