Lisa Bluder shows high bar set by C. Vivian Stringer can be reached
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – C. Vivian Stringer set a standard of excellence as the Iowa women’s basketball coach that for years seemed out of reach for others.
She took over a program that had only been in existence for nine seasons, and in seven of those first nine seasons before Stringer arrived, Iowa finished with a losing record, including 7-20 in the 1982-83 season.
Stringer was hired in the spring of 1983, and her impact was felt immediately as Iowa finished 17-10 in her 1983-84 debut season.
Iowa would then go on have 10 consecutive 20-win seasons from 1985-93, and played in the NCAA Tournament nine straight times, advancing to the Final Four in 1993.
Iowa won two outright Big Ten titles under Stringer, and also finished tied for first-place five times.

Stringer had a .762 winning percentage as the Iowa head coach (269-84), and she was even better in the Big Ten at .790 percent (169-45).
She set the bar so high that it was easy to assume that nobody would approach it.
Stringer’s top assistant, Angie Lee, was given the first chance after Stringer took the Rutgers job in 1995, but Lee was dismissed as head coach after five seasons, the last two ending with losing records, including 9-18 in the 1999-2000 season.
Once Lee started using her own recruits, the wins started coming far less often.
Enter Lisa Bluder.
Her impact, much like Stringer’s impact, was felt immediately as Iowa finished 21-10 in Bluder’s debut season in 2000-01 season.
But the climb to elite status didn’t come easy, or right away.
Iowa’s record fell to 18-11 in Bluder’s second season, and then came seasons in which Iowa finished 18-15 and 16-13.
The Hawkeyes finished 23-10 in the 2004-05 season, but were 8-8 in Big Ten play, which was good for just sixth place.
Then came a 17-12 record in the 2005-06 season, followed by a 14-16 losing campaign in the next season.
By then, Bluder had been the head coach for seven seasons, but nobody was comparing her to Stringer , and for obvious reasons.
The program was respectable, but it had shown no signs of being a Big Ten contender.
The first real breakthrough came in the 2007-08 season when Iowa tied for first place in the Big Ten after having finished tied for eighth the previous season.
Iowa then would finish no lower than third in the Big over the next four seasons, but still, nobody was comparing Bluder to Stringer.
Iowa made eight consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances under Bluder from 2007 to 2014, advancing to the Sweet 16 in the 2014-15 season, but still, nobody was comparing Bluder to Stringer.
Iowa then lost some momentum as it made back-to-back appearances in the WNIT in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons.
There was no way of knowing, or even believing in the slightest that something incredible was about to happen.

Megan Gustafson was halfway through her career as a Hawkeye heading into the 2017-18 season, but she hadn’t experienced the thrill of making the NCAA Tournament.
She had been a solid player to that point as a 6-foot-3 and fundamentally sound left-handed center, but there was no reason to think that Gustafson was on the verge of becoming a superstar.
But that’s what happened as Gustafson had spectacular junior and senior seasons, and she capped her career by leading Iowa to the Elite Eight as a senior in 2019 and being named the consensus National Player of the Year that season.
Gustafson’s success, both individually and from a team standpoint, helped to make her a Hawkeye legend, and she also paved the way for another legend as Caitlin Clark picked the Hawkeyes over a Who’s Who of college powerhouses, largely because Gustafson had proven to Clark that her lofty goals could be reached at Iowa.
“Megan showed Caitlin that it was possible, that if you work hard and take pride in what you’re doing that great things can be accomplished,” Iowa Associate Head Coach Jan Jensen said recently in a KCJJ radio interview.
Clark would go on to become even better than advertised as a five-star recruit, and she is now the biggest name in women’s college basketball, and maybe in all college sports.
The 6-foot guard from West Des Moines led Iowa to the NCAA championship for the first time ever this past season, and she was voted the consensus National Player of the Year as a junior.
Iowa set a home attendance record this past season, and the demand for tickets is so high that the Iowa ticket office recently paused the season ticket deposit program because of “overwhelming interest” in Iowa women’s basketball.

Clark made it abundantly clear during the recruiting process that she had some lofty goals for college, and she believed in Bluder enough to think she could achieve those goals at Iowa.
“It was her dream to take us to something that we haven’t done in a long, long time and beyond that,” Bluder said during the Final Four weekend. “And when one kid dreams it, and everybody else is willing to jump on that train, it’s amazing what can happen. It was — that’s why she wanted to stay in Iowa. She wanted to be close to home so her family could see her play. She also wanted to have the opportunity to do something.
“And she knew that we could develop players. With Megan Gustafson being the National Player of the Year, coming off an Elite Eight appearance. Those were really in our favor in helping to get her as well.”
Over the last six seasons, Iowa has compiled a 151-47 record, including 69-28 in the Big Ten, has won two Big Ten Tournament titles, and one regular-season title, and made five NCAA Tournament appearances, and it would’ve been six in a row if not for the 2020 NCAA Tournament having been canceled by the outbreak of the Covid-19 global pandemic.
Only once over the past six seasons has Iowa finished lower than third place in the Big Ten, and that was a fifth-place finish in the 2020-21 season.
However, that team also advanced to the Sweet 16 with Clark leading the way as a freshman.
For the past six seasons, Lisa Bluder, who is Iowa’s all-time winningest head coach with 494 victories, has shown that the incredibly high bar set by Stringer can be reached.
The way in which Bluder recruits, and her style of play, are different than how Stringer approached those two things.
But the results are pretty much the same.
The one big difference is that the current team has captured the hearts, and the imagination of fans, like never seen before.
And while Clark deserves a ton of credit for that, so does Bluder and her assistant coaches.
Bluder deserves credit for building and sustaining a family-like culture in which the players are so much more than just teammates.
Buder also deserves credit for fitting a superstar into a team sport without causing any jealousy or resentment.
Clark, of course, also deserves credit, but building team chemistry starts with the head coach.
Bluder has been the Iowa head coach for 23 seasons, but she shows no signs of slowing down, nor has she given any hints about retiring.
She seems to thoroughly enjoy the journey that comes with each season as much as reaching the destination, and that’s what coaching is all about, embracing the grind.

The thought of comparing Bluder to Stringer would’ve seemed silly as recently as five years ago, but that is no longer the case.
Lisa Bluder’s first phone message after reaching the Final Foul came from C. Vivian Stringer.
“She called me immediately after we beat Louisville,” Bluder said. “In fact, she was actually the first voice message that I got that night. I know coach Stringer is behind us. I haven’t been able to get back to her yet, but I will soon.”
Iowa has had three players selected in the WNBA draft since 2019 as All-Big Ten center Monika Czinano was selected by the Los Angeles Sparks on Monday with the 26th pick overall.
Czinano held a zoom call with the media on Tuesday and said her plans for medical school will now be delayed as she pursues professional basketball.
Czinano, in so many ways, symbolizes the Iowa program under Bluder in how she has worked so hard to reach her potential, both on the court and in the classroom.
And now Bluder faces the challenge of filling the massive hole left by Czinano.
Iowa gained a scholarship on Tuesday when sophomore forward Shateah Wetering entered the transfer portal, and now fans and the media are waiting anxiously to see how Bluder responds.
The level of interest in Iowa women’s basketball is higher than it’s ever been, and with Clark returning for at least one more season, Lisa Bluder’s legacy continues to evolve in spectacular fashion.
Bluder is from Marion and she played basketball for Northern Iowa.
She got her start in coaching at NAIA St. Ambrose where she compiled a 169-36 record over six seasons from 1984-90.
She then moved on to Drake where she compiled a 149-60 record over seven seasons.
Success has been Lisa Bluder’s co-pilot throughout her career, so much so that comparing her to the legendary C. Vivian Stringer is now well deserved and justified.