By Hawk Fanatic

IOWA CITY, Iowa – For the first time since 2019, the Iowa women’s basketball team is headed to the NCAA Tournament without Caitlin Clark as its do-everything point guard.

Iowa (22-10) is seeded sixth in the Spokane Regional 4 and will face No. 11 seed Murray State (25-7) Saturday in Norman, Oklahoma.

The winner would face the winner of the first-round matchup between Florida Gulf Coast and Oklahoma, whose head coach is former Hawkeye star forward and West Des Moines Dowling graduate Jennie (Lillis) Baranczyk.

Whichever team wins two games in Norman would head to Spokane for the Sweet 16.

The Hawkeyes have finished as the NCAA runner-up in each of the past two seasons and this also marks the seventh time in the last eight seasons that Iowa has made the NCAA Tournament, the one exception being the 2019-20 season when postseason play was cancelled due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 global pandemic.

Iowa has been a 6-seed or better in nine straight NCAA Tournament Appearances. It marks Iowa’s 31st all-time tournament appearance.

This also marks the first time since 1998 that Iowa will play in the NCAA Tournament without Lisa Bluder as its head coach.

Bluder, Iowa’s all-time winningest head coach, retired this past May after 24 seasons and was replaced by long-time assistant coach Jan Jensen.

The Hawkeyes suffered through a five-game losing streak in January, but have since won 10 of their last 13 games.

Villanova transfer Lucy Olsen, a 5-foot-10 guard and a first-team all-Big Ten selection, has shown why Iowa pursued her so aggressively in the transfer portal as Olsen leads Iowa in both scoring and assists this season.

Murray State defeated the Belmont Bruins 83-62 to win the Missouri Valley Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament championship at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana.

The Racers, the No. 1 seed and co-champion in the regular season, set the program record for wins in a season, topping the 24 that the 2007-08 team, and advance to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in school history and the first since 2008.

It’s the 24^th time in MVC history that the regular season winner also won the tournament championship.

Let’s Dance!!!!I am beyond proud and incredibly happy for our Hawks! They’ve been a blast to coach & their belief & hard work allll season long has given them a #6 seed in the @MarchMadnessWBB We’re heading to Norman, OK to take on a very good Murray State team. Let’s Goooo! https://t.co/V5NtwuUBLt

— Jan Jensen (@goiowa) March 17, 2025