By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Remember the drapes?

Remember when they were hung from the ceiling during Iowa women’s basketball games at Carver-Hawkeye Arena to hide all the empty seats?

It wasn’t that long ago, less than a decade.

It just seems longer because of how far the program has come from a popularity standpoint.

The Iowa women’s basketball team announced on Thursday that all its home games are sold out for the second straight season.

Last year, it was easy to understand why the 2023-24 Iowa women’s basketball team sold out all its home games long before the season had even started.

Caitlin Clark was entering the final season of her legendary Hawkeye career, and her team was coming off its first appearance in the NCAA national championship game.

Last year’s team also had a veteran supporting cast returning in Kate Martin, Gabbie Marshall, Molly Davis and Sharon Goodman.

There was so much to like about the 2023-24 team and fans just couldn’t get enough, and that includes fans from opposing teams, because wherever Clark and her cohorts played, the arenas were packed with adoring fans.

Iowa would go on to play in the national title game for the second straight season, falling to South Carolina in Clark’s final game as a Hawkeye.

Clark and Martin have since moved on to the WNBA, while Marshall, Davis and Goodman also have moved on.

The Iowa fans, on the other hand, haven’t moved on.

Of course, they would have loved for Clark to return for her Covid year, but that just wasn’t meant to be as Clark obviously showed as a rookie with the Indiana Fever that she was ready to compete at the highest level.

But even without Clark and her veteran sidekicks, and without Lisa Bluder, who retired as the Iowa head coach shortly after last season, Hawkeye fans still are fully engaged in the Iowa women’s basketball team.

That says a lot about what Clark and Bluder were able to accomplish with help from a lot of good players and good people.

Athletes often say that they want to leave their team in a better place when they’re finished and Clark and Bluder can certainly take pride in having met that challenge.

Under Bluder, the Iowa women’s basketball team played a style of ball that was fun to watch because it was fast paced and because her players were unselfish and well-connected.

Bluder’s teams were cohesive and they had strong chemistry both on and off the court.

That shouldn’t change under new head coach Jan Jensen, who has spent her entire coaching career working for and learning under Bluder.

With everything that Clark accomplished as a Hawkeye, her ability to attract fans and build interest might have been her greatest achievement.

Clark is now having a similar impact in the WNBA, while her former college team is benefitting from the energy and enthusiasm that grew from Clark’s historic run.

Former Iowa All-America center Megan Gustafson also deserves praise because she helped lead the initial rise to elite status by carrying Iowa to the Elite Eight in 2019 as the National Player of the Year.

Gustafson’s success both individually and from a team standpoint helped to convince Clark that greatness could be achieved at Iowa.

On one hand, Iowa fans are saying thank you to Bluder and to the former players for all the wins they had in college, and for the fun that they brought on those cold winter nights, while on the other hand, fans are also saying that they’re ready to support the current team with the same passion and interest.

It would be silly and unreasonable to expect the current team to match what Iowa accomplished in each of the past two seasons.

But it wouldn’t be asking too much for Iowa to make the NCAA Tournament, and for Iowa to finish in the upper third of the 18-team conference because that should be the standard.

Junior forward Hannah Stuelke and Villanova transfer Lucy Olsen both made the Preseason All-Big Ten team and they give Jensen a solid one-two punch to build around.

The addition of USC and UCLA will certainly make winning a conference title more difficult as both now rank among the top two or three teams in the nation.

But when fans sell out all the home games for two straight seasons, they’re sending a powerful message about expectations.