By Susan Harman

IOWA CITY, Iowa – As the Iowa women’s basketball team prepares for the Big Ten Tournament, coach Lisa Bluder is cognizant of the wear and tear that her team has experienced through 30 games and beyond. This season actually started in the summer with the trip to Italy and Croatia and the practices leading up to the games.

Fatigue, aches and pains and the mental drain of a long season play a role in setting the schedule this week before the team’s opener on Friday at 5:30 p.m. in the Target Center in Minneapolis.

“We definitely are not practicing as hard now as we were, say, in October, November and December, just because the team is a little bit more tired,” Bluder said.

And, she said, not knowing the identity your opponents means you can’t zero in on a specific scouting report.

“I’m kind of preparing for multiple teams in these practices,” she said.

 Iowa did not practice Monday after the draining Senior Day victory over second-ranked Ohio State nor will it practice Wednesday. The team will practice in Iowa City Thursday and then go to Minneapolis to watch the Wisconsin-Penn State game at 5:30 p.m. Iowa will play the winner of that game at 5:30 p.m. Friday.

“We’ll be in the arena, get a feel for it, watch them live, and then head back to the hotel and start our scouting or meetings,” Bluder said.

Iowa is 3-0 combined against Wisconsin and Penn State. The Hawkeyes routed the Badgers twice and have defeated them 29 times in a row. The Penn State game saw Hannah Stuelke score a career-high and then-Carver-Hawkeye Arena record 47 points. That game was marred by 51 fouls.

“At this time of year you really know your scouts,” Bluder said. “You know your opponents pretty well. And you don’t have much time to work on your scout. It really has become a more mental scout than anything.”

“I think that’s a pretty good matchup for us in our first game,” junior Sydney Affolter said. “I’m excited to play either team.”

For the first time in history the Big Ten women’s tournament is sold out. But those types of environments are old hat for the Hawkeyes this season.

“I think even throughout practice we’re always preparing for game situations where we know there’s not going to be a wipe out,” junior Kylie Feuerbach said. “Preparing for close, tight games. We’ve had some very close ones where we have to stay focused for all four quarters and 40 minutes. Those have prepped us for this March and what’s to come.”

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Sunday’s Spectacular Finish. It wasn’t just your imagination. Carver-Hawkeye Arena was different Sunday for the Senior Day festivities and the battle with Ohio State. The whole place was high on adrenaline and heartfelt emotion.

“Sometimes on the court we talked, and we couldn’t hear ourselves,” Affolter said. “It’s crazy but there’s all the hype around that game and for our seniors and College Game Day and the competition. There was a lot going on, and it was really exciting, but after it was nice to relax.”

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Momentum.  For the third year in a row Iowa won its final regular-season game in a jam-packed, raucous atmosphere. In 2022 the Hawkeyes knocked off Michigan to win a share of the Big Ten title. In 2023 Caitlin Clark sank a desperation 3-pointer at the horn to beat Big Ten champ Indiana. In both cases Iowa went on to win the conference tournament.

Not even those games could match Sunday’s atmosphere when Iowa beat Ohio State on Senior Day.

“Yeah, I think we’re really excited,” Feuerbach said. “We have a lot of momentum going into it. And I think we’re all clicking at the right time.

“This is the same thing that happened last year. I feel like it’s kind of a beautiful thing to see how, just throughout the season, how much everybody progresses and how our team chemistry just builds even more. So just a really exciting time, and we’re all really pumped for it.”

“I think it just shows how good we really are,” Affolter said. “This team has so much potential, and I really think like the sky’s the limit. So getting those wins before entering into postseason is super important and just really builds our confidence.”

Even the cautious Bluder conceded that those games have made a difference.

“We’re thankful we’ve had those games at home, in our environment,” she said. “I think we use our environment really well to propel us and to give us confidence in those situations. And I think when you can win games like that against really good competition at the end of the year, it makes you realize, yeah, you can beat anybody in the Big Ten.”