LISA BLUDER: Good morning. Thanks for being here, but these kids have classes, so that becomes the priority over you guys getting your sleep.
Here we go again. Whether we want to or not, it’s time to turn the page and go on to another season after last year’s historic season. What a way to begin this season. Right now we’re starting ranked in the top 6 in the country and considered the Big Ten favorite, although this conference is loaded, and there’s going to be a lot of surprises along the way.
We start this season with every single game sold out in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. We start this season in a week and a half with about 50,000 people joining us in Kinnick for the Crossover, and as you all know, we start the season without 40 percent of our starting lineup. But we also start the season with the nation’s best player in Caitlin Clark.
Caitlin won every award possible last year. I’m so proud of her for that, but I’m almost more proud that she was an Academic All-American. She was the CSC Academic All-American of the Year last year, and it’s no surprise that she’s been named as the preseason Big Player of the Year, as well.
But a pleasant surprise is that we have Gabbie Marshall back, somebody that we weren’t expecting to have back a year ago, and so that’s really nice. She’s returning for her fifth season of eligibility.
Gabbie has been voted a team captain this year. She’s considered one of our best defensive players. She led the team again last year in steals. She’s a knock-down 3-point shooter. You saw her make seven 3s in the semifinal of the Big Ten championship last year when we defeated Maryland. Without her we probably wouldn’t have been there.
We’re glad to have Gabbie back.
Another pleasant surprise is Kate Martin, who returns for her sixth year of eligibility after missing her first with the ACL. So glad to have Kate back.
But Kate is honestly one of the strongest leaders I’ve ever been around. She’s a culture builder. She’s playing like a pro right now. She really is. She’s knocking down 3s. She’s physically defending hard, rebounding. I think you’re going to see Kate just jump off the stat sheet this year.
How do we fill the void of Monika and McKenna? That’s what everybody wants to know, right? I think there’s a number of options. Addie O’Grady played some of her best basketball in the NCAA Tournament last year. At 6’4″, she gives us a greater defensive presence in the middle, but I’m also going to beg you — I’m going to ask you, I might even beg you to not compare her to Monika, just like four years ago I sat here and I begged you not to compare Monika to Megan.
Monika came of her own. Give Addie time to come of her own. Addie is a good basketball player. She’s a darned good basketball player, just like Megan was, just like Monika was. But comparisons don’t do anybody any good, so just give her a little bit of time.
Other good options in the post include Sharon Goodman, A.J. Ediger. What do we do with the power forward position? I think that one is obvious. I think everyone saw last year how good, how athletic, how fast Hannah Stuelke was.
But this year I think over the summer she became a better basketball player, and that’s what we needed for her to become, and I think now she understands the game better. Her shot is better.
I think that we can use Hannah at the power forward, or if we want to go fast, we can also use her at the center position.
This team has depth. Molly Davis returns for her fifth year, and Molly is playing very well right now. She looks so much more confident than last year, knocking down 3s, passing, getting to the rim.
She’s a player that we have to find more time for on the court. Molly can really play the 1, 2, or 3. So we need to accomplish that.
We have shooters with Taylor McCabe coming back in her second season. We have depth with Sydney Affolter, and Kylie Feuerbach is also back after sitting out with a knee injury last year.
We’re also hoping for an injury-free year for Jada Gyamfi, but we have lots of depth we feel like and lots of options for us to go to.
We have a tremendous schedule. Five teams in the Big Ten are now ranked in the top 25. Three of them are in the top 10. Our nonconference schedule includes facing No. 9 Virginia Tech, a team that was in the Final Four last year on a neutral court in Charlotte.
We also will be hosting Kansas State. They’re ranked 25th in the country right now. And last year they gave us a one-point loss at their place, but they do return their center, their 6’6″ center, so that’s going to be a battle.
Thanksgiving gives us three games in Florida. We have the potential to play Florida Gulf Coast, who is always a great team. We have the potential to play North Carolina, ranked in the top 20, and also the potential of a rematch against Kansas State.
I think another game to mark on everybody’s calendars would be our game in Des Moines on a neutral court against Cleveland State who went 30-5 last year. They are a really good basketball team.
We’ll be playing at Iowa State, at UNI, hosting Drake. But 11 of the games on our schedule are against teams in the top 25 in the country right now. So we have a very, very challenging schedule once again.
But I know that Carver-Hawkeye Arena will be as tough a place for anybody to come into and play with every game being sold out.
Of course we’re looking forward to in a week and a half going out into Kinnick and having the opportunity to play outdoors for the first time ever and playing in front of hopefully 50,000. That’s my personal goal, and hopefully we’ll get to that.
I think it could be a lot of fun for everybody involved to be a part of an attendance-breaking record.
We lost a lot to graduation, but we also have a lot to be really, really excited about.
I will open it up for questions.
Q. Megan and Monika were very much down on the block, not a lot of dribbling type of post player. Addie O’Grady is a little different, she can play a little further out. Do you see the offense changing a little bit at all with their versatility down there?
LISA BLUDER: Not a lot, quite honestly. I agree with you. I think that Addie is a little bit different player, but Megan and Monika both came out to the high post and both went to the short corner and were able to shoot those shots pretty well, too. I do think that was a strength of Addie’s, though.
Q. What is your pregame ritual before every game?
LISA BLUDER: I’m not superstitious, thankfully, because wow, being in this business this long and being superstitious, that would be pretty bad.
But the only thing that I do is I follow kind of a rigid routine because it’s more because I want to be on time for everything more than anything superstitious. The only thing that I do, maybe — I don’t know if you’d call this superstitious or ritual — is I like to pray with assistant coaches before every game, with Jan Jensen and Jenny Fitzgerald. So that is the one thing.
Q. The ticket sales speak for themselves, but just in terms of your popularity, attention, you name it, things are unparalleled right now. How are the coaches and players handling all this?
LISA BLUDER: Yeah, I think you’re right. If you start thinking about the big picture, it can get a little overwhelming for anybody. These are 18-, 19-year-old young women.
So I think us as adults, we have to kind of keep it in perspective a little bit, and I think they kind of — your emotions rub off on them, there’s no doubt. I think as a coach you have to lead in that way, and to us, we’re trying to enjoy it.
You’ve heard me say this before. I’ve stole this quote from Billy Jean King many a times and, in fact, I’m reading the book right now, Pressure is a Privilege. So I think we have to remember that, that we’re in this situation of facing pressure because we’ve done well. Let’s enjoy that. Let’s rejoice about that.
Try to enjoy it and not think about the overall picture, but just enjoy every single day. It sounds so simplistic, but I think that’s the way we have to handle it.
Q. Addie had a good European trip for you. Has she separated herself from the other post candidates as far as being a starter at the 5?
LISA BLUDER: If I had to name a starting five right now, she would be there. But I wouldn’t say there’s a huge separation between the three of them. And even you could put Hannah in there, too. They’re very much — Addie is probably winning because of experience and height, but she did have a very good foreign tour, and I thought she played very well in the NCAA Tournament.
We needed her there. That’s why she’s ahead of the group right now. But quite honestly, there’s not a huge lead right there.
Q. You mentioned Kylie Feuerbach in your opening statement. Seems like it’s been so long since we’ve seen her on the court. Is she 100 percent right now, ready to go?
LISA BLUDER: I would say so. In practice — for one thing she’s elected not to wear a brace this year, which in the past we’ve had our players that are coming off ACLs wear braces. She’s elected not to, and I think mentally that’s helped her and maybe us to forget about it. She is playing very well. She had a great practice yesterday, actually, a really good practice.
Q. When you look at a team like this that finished the way it did, the popularity that’s ensuing, there could be added, as you’ve talked about, added pressure, scrutiny, more social media interactions in a negative way. Have you had any discussions with your players that now comes because you’re having more people, more attention, that that could be a negative, whereas in the past you’ve had such a close-knit community that’s been more supportive when things got sideways a little bit?
LISA BLUDER: Yeah. Remember, things — we started the season last year, I think, ranked fourth, so we’re down from last year. So less pressure already, right?
You know, and we had some losses early last year, and we bounced back from them really well. I think in athletics you always go back to your past and use your past experiences in how you got through those.
But talking with the team, we’ve talked about the pressure, we’ve talked about pressure is a privilege, and we’ve also talked about, will you quit looking at social media. You can look at — I’ve told this to my team. You can look at 200 things on social media. 199 can be great, and there’s one that really stinks, and you’ll remember the one. So don’t read any of the 200.
I know they need to be on social media to brand themselves, especially in this day of NIL. I understand that. But let’s just not go down the hole of — rabbit hole of reading all the stuff from anonymous people.
Q. How will you as a staff manage the whole Caitlin hoopla as far as it goes with the rest of the team? She gets so much attention. Keeping the locker room right. I’m sure you probably have real mature girls playing for you, but are you mindful of that kind of thing?
LISA BLUDER: Yeah, Caitlin who? (Laughter).
No, I agree. I think there would be a possibility of having turmoil in your locker room with a superstar, but I think it helps us because we have dealt with a superstar before. We had Megan Gustafson on this team. She was the national Player of the Year. Certainly Caitlin’s popularity has exceeded that, there’s no doubt.
I think it speaks volumes that Gabbie and Kate elected to come back and wanted to play with her. That shows you what kind of teammate she is. That shows you what kind of person she is.
I think the players all respect her so much because they see her. She’s working hard. They see her the first one in the gym, the last one to leave. She’s putting in her time. They understand that she can do some special things.
I think that eliminates the jealousy because she is a good teammate, and I think that helps quite a bit. But we will talk about it, yeah. Caitlin has a little bit more attention, but when her light shines, it shines on everybody in that locker room, so let’s all enjoy it.