By Ryan Murken

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Lisa Bluder has experienced the NCAA tournament enough times to know one of the most common pitfalls for young teams can be the unfamiliarity that comes with a tournament trip.

Making trips to unfamiliar cities and new arenas, on an adjusted schedule to play an uncommon opponent are all regular obstacles during NCAA tournament time.

The most unusual circumstance facing Bluder as she prepares Iowa for an NCAA Tournament for the 13^th time in her decorated career is the opponent waiting in Saturday’s opening round isn’t unfamiliar at all.

There will be plenty of familiar faces across the court when sixth-seeded Iowa (24-7) opens NCAA tournament play against Creighton (18-12) on Saturday at 5 p.m. in Los Angeles, California.

“(Creighton) is somebody that we are familiar with which is kind of unusual quite honestly,” Bluder said. “Going into the NCAA tournament you are typically preparing for somebody you have never seen and you don’t really know but we know a lot of these kids and a lot of these kids we know personally, we recruited them, we built those relationships with them.”

With just 250 miles of Interstate-80 separating the two schools the familiarity on both sides is no surprise.

While Iowa and Creighton haven’t played in an official game since 2006 the two teams have met for preseason scrimmages each of the past five seasons.

Creighton is making its second straight NCAA tournament appearance and fourth in 16 seasons under head coach Jim Flanery after winning its tournament opener a year ago.   

“Sometimes as a six seed you are going to get a team that only goes once in a while or is kind of like ‘oh we made it’ and that’s good enough for them,” Bluder said. “That’s not the situation with Creighton they are in it just about every year.” 

Bluder said on Wednesday her professional relationship with Flanery goes back years.

The familiarity does stop there.

She exchanged text messages with former Nebraska coach Connie Yori who is in her first season as an advisor for the Creighton program following the announcement of pairings on Monday’s NCAA tournament.

Creighton assistant coach Linda Savayongchanh is a Des Moines East and Drake graduate and the Bluejays have three Iowa natives on their roster and two in their starting lineup.

“I have a lot of respect for Jim and what he has done and his entire staff,” Bluder said. “They are a really terrific people, they do the things the right away in my opinion, they work hard, they are excellent coaches and so we do have a very good relationship with them.

Bluder has seen Creighton’s top player, junior forward Aubrey Faber, plenty of times outside of the preseason scrimmages between the two teams.

The Des Moines Dowling graduate visited Iowa several times before electing to play at Creighton.

This season the 6-foot-2 Faber leads the Bluejays in scoring at 14.8 points per game and adds 4.5 rebounds and 3.2 assists per contest.

I love Audrey Faber, I think she is a terrific player, we had her on campus several times,” Bluder said. “She is a terrific player that can shoot 3s, she can penetrate, she can post up so she is that all-around power forward that can do it all and she has great size to go with it and quite honestly she is just a really good kid too. I have a lot of respect for Audrey and the Career that she has had at Creighton has been stellar.”

Iowa has its own standout in 6-3 junior center Megan Gustafson.

Saturday’s NCAA opener will be the first time on the sports biggest stage for one of the game’s top players in Gustafson.

The Big 10 Player of the Year and an All-American by every outlet imaginable, Gustafson faces a Creighton team that does feature a true center.

“The advantage is that they don’t have a true post and that they aren’t really big inside,” Bluder said. “They have three players that will play so the post so it’s not like they don’t have a post by any means it’s just that they don’t have that 6-foot-4 player. They are physical, it’s not like they won’t be physical on her.”

Gustafson enters NCAA tournament play leading the nation in scoring 25.6 while shooting an NCAA-best 67 percent from the floor.

She is coming off a career-high and Big Ten Tournament record 48-point performance in a 90-89 quarterfinal loss to Minnesota.

Gustafson has a favorable matchup against a Creighton starting lineup that features only two players in Faber and 6-foot-2 forward Bailey Norby over 5-foot-11.

However, Bluder knows the Hawkeyes will need more than a big game from their biggest start to advance to face the winner of third-seeded UCLA (24-7) and No. 14 seed American (26-6) on Monday.

“I feel like everybody knows about Megan and their game plan is going to be around Megan so the more help that we can give Megan the better it is for our team,” Bluder said “She has to be a focal point but we can’t have her be the only thing and the more people that we have step up is going to make her life a lot easier.”