By Susan Harman

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Super senior Molly Davis was available for the first time since she injured her kneecap against Ohio State on March 3. Davis had a wrap on her knee and walked around the locker room without a noticeable limp.

Iowa coach Lisa Bluder was optimistic about Davis’s situation.

“I don’t anticipate her playing on Saturday, but if we can get to Monday, we can get some time from her,” she said.

Davis said she enjoyed the reaction she got when fans at the Big Ten tournament saw her on press row with her crutches and chanted her name.

“It’s awesome to see that support, not that I like the attention, but it’s really awesome,” Davis said. “Hawk fans are the best, so it was really cool.”

More to the point, Davis is now off those crutches and is hoping the chants come because she’s on the floor in a uniform.

“I always think I have a chance,” she said. “I’m never going to count myself out or move myself out. So that’s my mentality approaching every single day.”

She was reluctant to describe the exact nature of her physical therapy, but clearly she’s made remarkable progress from the day she was carried off the court in pain.

**********

Scouting Clark.  Holy Cross coach Maureen Magarity joked a couple days ago about her daughters watching so much Caitlin Clark on TV that if her team reached Saturday’s game she’d get an in-house scouting report from them. So what did they say?

“Don’t let her make shots,” coach Magarity said to laughter. “They’re just overwhelmed and just so excited to be here. I feel so lucky that they can experience this.”

Magarity confessed that they stopped by the bookstore for a souvenir.

“There was one shirt we were really looking for that was about to be sold out, so we might have had to buy that,” she said.

**********

Hayden Fry strikes again. Iowa football defensive end Brian Allen showed his sister Janelle and her Holy Cross teammates and coaches some of the sights while they’re in town. In addition they got a tour of Kinnick Stadium and the football facilities.

“He showed us a little bit of the ins and outs, the locker room, showed us the field, some of their meeting rooms,” Janelle Allen said. “It was definitely a really cool experience.”

But that’s not all.

“We did see the pink locker room,” Janelle said. “I didn’t even know that they did that, so that was absolutely hilarious to all of us.”

“I think the pink locker room was probably my favorite part of the tour,” senior Bronaugh Power-Cassidy said. “I thought it was incredible.”

Power-Cassidy is a native of Ireland and may not have heard of Hayden Fry’s psychological tricks. Magarity was impressed as well.

“The football staff was so gracious to let us tour the amazing facility, get on the field, run around,” she said. “My daughters were in awe of everything. They ran down and back on the football field, so I appreciated that, getting them worn out.

“But it was really special for the two of them (the Allen siblings) to spend some time together.”

Former Iowa football coach Hayden Fry had the visiting locker room at Kinnick Stadium painted pink shortly after he was hired in 1979 to use as a psychological ploy.