By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Iowa women’s basketball coach Jan Jensen started the media day press conference on Tuesday exactly how she should have under the unique circumstances.

She thanked the fans for making Hawkeye women’s basketball one of the hottest tickets in the country as it was recently announced that all of Iowa’s home games are sold out for a third straight season, and for the second year in a row without Caitlin Clark as a member of the team.

“I am so thankful to our fan base,” Jensen said at the start of her opening statement. “They have been with us every step of the way since our staff got here all those years ago, and in my shifting over to the other chair and for us to sell out three years in a row, I really can’t thank our fan base enough. It really is a wonderful part of who we are, who this program is.

“Big shout-out to our fans.”

It would have been easy to assume that the home sellouts would start to occur less frequently in the post Caitlin Clark era because she was a generational talent who fascinated fans with her logo threes, her no-looks passes, and with her ability to make everyone around her better.

Iowa also won at a historical level with Clark leading the way as a dynamic point guard, finishing as the NCAA runner-up in her junior and senior seasons in 2023 and 2024.

But Clark has been gone now for over a year, as has former Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder, who retired shortly after the 2024 season, and yet, the beat goes on.

Iowa didn’t make it all the way to the NCAA championship game in Jensen’s first season as head coach.

But her first team did win 23 games and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

They also had fun doing it, which is another trademark of Iowa women’s basketball.

“I guess, and I think the key has been I think the way that we play — the young women play with a lot of heart and they play with a lot of joy and I think it’s fun to watch,” Jensen said of Iowa’s fan appeal in the post Caitlin Clark era. “It’s also fun when you win, right?

“But I think the fan base is with us, and I think they feel that. If we look at anything in our lives that we’re a part of, if you think of a club you might be a part of, a neighborhood you’re a part of or whatever, when you feel vested and you feel the folks that you’re with feel vested, there’s just kind of an ease to that get-together, right? If it’s a monthly club, it’s a weekly club, it’s like you look forward to that club.

“I think the longevity that I’ve been able to have here, certainly that Lisa had here, is that we got this club. For the most part, through thick and thin, we’re with each other in that club. I think that’s how I feel.”

Iowa now has arguably the best home-court advantage in the Big Ten, and one of the best in the country.

That was never more apparent than last season when Iowa upset USC at Carver-Hawkeye Arena before a raucous sellout crowd.

“Our success here is so, so hugely reliant on fans because it makes it so much fun to win with them,” Jensen said. “It makes it — with your good fans you can kind of tolerate that tough loss because they’re pushing you through. I think there’s a genuine feel for most people. But along with that there’s obviously more spotlight and more critical thinkers, too.”

In addition to her team being fun to watch, Jensen also has assembled an intriguing roster that includes players from all over the place, including California, Alaska, Oregon, Georgia and the Dominican Republic.

Freshman guard Addie Deal, who is from Irvine, California and a former five-star recruit, had her pick of schools but she picked Iowa for a number of reasons, including the rise to prominence under Caitlin Clark and the culture.

“I think it’s been an interesting time frame for us because the timing of how the Big Ten was expanding was in line with the Caitlin Clark era,” Jensen said. “The Big Ten is expanding different places and Caitlin is moving a needle, and all of a sudden Iowa is on a lot of TVs, we’re in a lot of news stories.

“And then the story wasn’t just Caitlin, it became a little bit more about the others on the team. And then I think it really shined a light on what I’d like to think we’ve been doing here for a long, long time, which is playing a really fun style of basketball with quality young women.

“We’ve always started with that. Then if there was ever a time when with the commitment of Addie Deal and others, if there was ever a time to keep broadening that, I thought it was the time to go for it, with the more national angle.”

Sixth-year guard Kylie Feuerbach has a unique perspective as someone who was on the team throughout Clark’s record-breaking career.

Feuerbach also played her freshman season for Iowa State, so she is used to seeing strong fan support.

And though she knew it would be a challenge moving on with Clark, and without Clark’s talented supporting cast, Feuerbach was confident that the fans would stay loyal and keep filling the seats.

“I’m not surprised at all,” Feuerbach said of the continued fan support. “I think the Hawkeye fan base is just so loyal. And I think women’s basketball as a whole has gotten so much more recognition over the years and it’s just a fun sport to watch.

“So on top of that, not only are they loyal, but they get to watch some fun basketball here in Carver. So I’m not too surprised, but I’m also very grateful because they are such loyal fans and the best in the nation.

“That doesn’t happen everywhere. Not everybody gets to experience it. So we definitely don’t take it for granted.”