In post-Caitlin Clark Iowa, can the Hawkeyes adjust to a new era?

IOWA CITY, Iowa — In a recent Iowa women’s basketball team meeting, after the Hawkeyes had dropped five straight Big Ten games, first-year head coach Jan Jensen told the story of Florence Chadwick, an American swimmer.

In 1952, Chadwick attempted to become the first woman to swim the 26 miles from the Catalina Islands to the California coastline. Fifteen hours into the swim, a heavy fog settled on the open waters and the 34-year-old began to doubt herself. An hour later, convinced she couldn’t make it, since she couldn’t see the coastline, she pulled herself into a boat. She was less than a mile from the shore.

“The shore is closer than you think,” Jensen told to her players. “You’re closer than you are far. Don’t get out of the water.”

It’s a message that Jensen has reiterated to her team and herself throughout this season.

In April, the Hawkeyes made their second consecutive national championship game appearance on the backs of Caitlin Clark and a veteran core that mostly departed after the title game. In May, Lisa Bluder retired after 24 years as Iowa’s head coach, and a week later, Jensen — Iowa’s associate head coach the previous two decades — was named her successor. In September, with half a roster of players who had never before worn an Iowa uniform, the Hawkeyes announced they had sold out their season tickets.

It was an absolute whirlwind.

Now, Jensen sits in that head-coaching office, knowing she faces a unique challenge with thousands of eyes (both in Iowa City and beyond) affixed on her program. She must honor the recent history but not dwell in the past. She needs to sustain a program without so many of the players who got it to where it was. She must evolve with the changing game while staying consistent with who she is as a coach.

“Everything is different,” Jensen says. “Everything we knew has changed.”

Makin’ memories 🫶#Hawkeyes pic.twitter.com/fD5g8mVbPC

— Iowa Women’s Basketball (@IowaWBB) January 29, 2025

The feeling is not unfamiliar to any college basketball head coach right now, as conferences shift and they navigate new waters of name, image and likeness and revenue sharing. But in Iowa City, the shift from last season to this season is particularly acute.

No program has ever had a player quite like Clark. She reset the scoring, 3-point shooting and assist record books at Iowa and in college basketball. But a significant part of Clark’s magic was being born in 2002, meaning her college career hit smack dab in the middle of NIL’s introduction. Her highlights weren’t just getting to sports fans on “SportsCenter” like previous women’s basketball college stars, her face was now in Gatorade and Nike ads and she starred in State Farm commercials. She broke through to casual sports fans and nonsports audiences to elevate women’s basketball. Clark became internationally known and brought attention (and the masses) to Iowa City while selling out opposing arenas when she came to town.

But now Clark is gone. Bluder is gone. Iowa fans still show up at away games, but not in the same numbers as the past two seasons. The Hawkeyes don’t require the same level of security they did during the peak Clark hysteria days. Kids still stand and scream for autographs as players leave the court, but it’s not six deep, pushing into the railings.

So, how does Jensen navigate this moment? Iowa’s vaunted history is so recent, and the current team — sitting at 14-7 and 13th in the Big Ten — hasn’t achieved the success that’s become expected in Iowa City. As it stands, Iowa is on the outside looking in for the NCAA Tournament, but that’s what happens during a rebuilding season.

No players transferred from Iowa after last season — a retention rate not many programs can boast. Of the Hawkeyes’ seven losses this season, only one has been by double digits (losing by 10 to Tennessee). In the other six defeats, the average margin of loss has been 4 points.

“I’ve felt the pressure big time,” Jensen said. “I don’t do the grace thing really well. I do for everybody else, but not for myself. I don’t like to disappoint. And I just love our fans and these kids so much that I just feel badly when we do come up short. I’ve taken those things hard because it’s been a possession here or there. That’s been tough just because I do feel the responsibility.”

Former assistants who become head coaches often talk about the challenges of moving “one seat over,” how losses hit differently. Even among the longest-tenured assistants-turned-head coaches, there’s so much they don’t see until that designation falls on their shoulders. This year, the Hawkeyes have lost as many regular-season conference games as the last two seasons combined, and that’s still with three top-10 opponents remaining in their final eight Big Ten games.

Sunday, Iowa will retire Clark’s jersey after a game against No. 4 USC, which features JuJu Watkins, one of college basketball’s brightest stars — on the court and in the NIL world. Though the Hawkeyes have the second-best attendance nationally this season (according to tickets sold), their in-person attendance has sometimes waned. In a recent midweek game against Northwestern, Carver Hawkeye Arena was about 70 percent full with most folks getting into their seats only shortly before tipoff. Toward the end of Clark’s career at Iowa, the stands filled up 45 minutes early as fans were eager to watch her pregame shooting routine.

To the rafters.

2.2.25@CaitlinClark22 x #Hawkeyes pic.twitter.com/Qjq1Y1VfrZ

— Iowa Women’s Basketball (@IowaWBB) December 18, 2024

Sunday will encapsulate this season’s journey for Jensen and these Hawkeyes — the past and the present, in conjunction and in contrast. Jensen knows she can hold gratitude for both while pushing the program closer to where she wants to be.

“It’s easier when you focus on gratitude, and you focus on why you do what you do,” Jensen said. “Before everybody was paying attention, my same motivation was then as it is now. … When you keep the main thing the main thing, then you can still navigate and move in your challenges, the highs and the lows, and all of it.”

She keeps coming back to this thought: Don’t get out of the water. The shore is closer than you think.

Iowa isn’t alone among programs followed by a shadow. UConn and Tennessee can understand how that feels as programs with such deeply engrained winning cultures and iconic coaches who set perennial standards with which current teams are compared. Stanford coach Kate Paye can probably best understand Jensen’s feelings right now as she took over after Tara VanDerveer retired last season as college basketball’s winningest coach.

What Clark and the Hawkeyes created the last two seasons was lightning in a bottle. Every game was an opportunity to see something spectacular and jaw-dropping. The national audience that tuned in expected brilliance from the players in Iowa uniforms. The lack of similarities isn’t a knock on this season’s team or on Jensen.

“It wasn’t going to be all lollipops and rainbows,” Jensen said. “But neither was last year at times.”

Like every program that settles, adjusts and moves forward after someone great leaves, there comes a period of identity searching. For Iowa, the national attention and television cameras that zeroed in on the Caitlin Craze might be gone, but plenty of fans have stayed. The local attention hasn’t diminished. Even at that midweek Northwestern game, 20 reporters attended the postgame media conference. Bars and restaurants across Iowa City still fill up ahead of home games, and any place that understaffs one of those nights puts its servers through a gantlet.

Where the shore is for Iowa this season is unknown, but Jensen keeps stressing that the Hawkeyes are not far off — a shot here or there or a 50/50 ball going their way, and losses could’ve been wins. More importantly, that shot or 50/50 ball gets the team playing closer to the Iowa standard.

“Caitlin is a generational player and her legacy at Iowa will be forever, and she has had such an impact,” senior forward Sydney Affolter said. “But for the girls on this team, we don’t have to be someone from last year, we don’t have to make that comparison. … Just leaning into our own specific potential and not comparing to the past. I was blessed to be a part of it, but this is a new team and we’re turning the page.”

That balance has been key to getting through this season for Iowa, for both Jensen and the players — appreciating what was, what is and what can be, without the need to compare. As much as they might be asked to do so (by reporters, especially), they’ve pushed back.

It might be different from a season ago, but different isn’t necessarily bad.

When Jensen went on a recruiting trip last summer, Brenda Kral, the women’s basketball office secretary, went a bit rogue. Jensen had only recently moved down the hall into her new office, and her belongings were still in boxes and files.

Adjustments needed to be made, but there were only so many options. The room is a unique shape, half of the room being windows. On the only two walls devoid of windows, wall units are affixed, and the massive desk sits just above the main power source, so that really couldn’t go anywhere, either. But the couches and coffee table that had sat in the exact same position for the last 14 years — those could move.

Kral got to work. She reorganized the chairs and couch, shifting them closer to the curved windows. She added a display bookcase for Jensen’s photos and memorabilia. Moved the peace lily plant from one side of the room to the other. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

When Jensen returned, she called down the hall to Kral. She loved it. It was different. Certain chairs sat in better lighting now, and others were in a position that would take some getting used to, but it felt fresh and different, and that — Jensen knew — she could work with.

(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Andy Lyons / Getty Images, Jacob Kupferman / Getty Images, Matthew Holst / Getty Images)