Four starters return to the lineup, but that leaves one spot to fill.
By Blake Dowson
There is a multitude of talent coming back to the Iowa women’s basketball team this year.
On a team that likes to get up and down and score the ball at a high clip, the Hawkeyes return 80 percent of their scoring from a year ago — much of that coming from the four starters who return to the lineup.
The Hawkeyes will again face expectations, after not having done much of anything in that department a season ago. That could be seen as a hurdle for a team that is still extremely young, but it could also (and should) be seen as progress.
The 2015-16 season was a gap year, a disappointing campaign considering it snapped a streak of eight-straight NCAA Tournament appearances, but the talent and experience on the roster set up much better for the 2016-17 season.
So here we are now, with four-fifths of the starting lineup and four-fifths of the scoring back in a quest to put their dancing shoes back on in March.
There’s little question about the leadership of this team; Ally Disterhoft and Alexa Kastanek are both in their senior seasons, and both are good leaders. The team is young, but the incoming freshmen look more than ready to contribute to the team, as their No. 7 recruiting ranking would suggest. They lost a point guard last year with Whitney Jennings transferring, but Tania Davis looked like she was moving into that role anyway.
With many questions marks from last year seemingly answered heading into the fall, there is one more important question to ask — who is that fifth starter going to be?
Taking into consideration the roster, the existing starters, and head coach Lisa Bluder’s way of thinking, the final starter is going to be a guard. That takes such players as senior Hailey Schneden, sophomores Hannah Stewart and Carly Mohns, and freshman Amanda Ollinger out of the equation. All four of those players will contribute, but another ball handler is needed.
Subtracting those four forwards, it leaves six guards left to pick from— Kastanek, junior Christina Buttenham, and freshmen Makenzie Meyer, Alexis Sevillian, Kathleen Doyle, and Bre Cera.
There are a couple of things to think when considering who of the six guards will earn that final spot; Bluder has shown in recent years she likes to start a pair of point guards to make her offense run, but she also leans toward experience at the beginning of the year.
That being said, through two weeks of Game Time action, it looks like there are three women realistically vying for the final spot: Kastanek, Buttenham, and Doyle.
Kastanek brings both the experience, being a senior, and the ability to handle the ball at the point. She was a very important piece at the beginning of last season before Davis was inserted into the starting lineup, hitting on better than 40 percent of her 3-point attempts early in the year.
With Kastanek, the question is whether she can keep her turnover numbers at a reasonable number. She has a tendency to make mistakes, which lands her on the bench.
Buttenham could find herself in the starting lineup if her shooting numbers rise in her third year on campus. She does a ton of things well; she rebounds (both on offense and defense), she gets out in transition, and she plays good defense. The problem is that she shot only 37 percent from the field a year ago.
Doyle is an interesting prospect, making her commitment to Iowa late in the recruiting game after decommitting from Nebraska. She has arguably been the best player in Game Time this summer, doing a little bit of everything. She scores from everywhere, rebounds well for her size (she’s 5-9), and loves to get into passing lanes on defense.
She is young, however, Bluder typically likes her freshmen to come off the bench at the beginning of the year.
When Iowa tips off against Oral Roberts in its first regular-season matchup of the year, Kastanek is the safe pick to have in the starting lineup.
However, it would be a mild surprise if Doyle doesn’t work her way into the starting lineup somewhere around early to mid-December.