Iowa women’s basketball head coach Lisa Bluder announced her retirement on Monday, ending her 24 years at the helm in Iowa City, where she won more than 500 games and became the program’s all-time winningest coach, elevating the Hawkeyes to new heights. 

Associate head coach Jan Jensen will take over the head coaching job, Iowa athletics announced. Jensen, whom Bluder coached at Drake, has been on Bluder’s Iowa staff since 2000. 

In a statement, Bluder detailed battling through a “range of emotions”  this offseason as the Hawkeyes fell in the national title game to South Carolina. After mulling over her future plans with her husband, David, Bluder said it is time for her to step aside. 

“It has been the honor of my career to be a part of the Iowa Hawkeye family, and to lead a women’s basketball program filled with so many talented and remarkable young women, who have gone on to do great things in their careers and, more importantly, in their lives,” Bluder said in the statement. “There is no denying that this past season was incredible for so many reasons, and we could not have accomplished our achievements without all of you.” 

“After the season ended, I spent time with our student-athletes and coaches reviewing the season and preparing those moving on for what comes next,” she continued. “With that also came personal contemplation about what this journey has meant to me, how to best champion this program, and what the future looks like for my family and me.” 

Before taking over the Iowa program in 2000, Bluder amassed 16 years of head coaching experience at Drake and St. Ambrose. She became the Hawkeyes’ all-time winningest coach in 2014, surpassing C. Vivian Stringer’s record of 296 victories. One year later, Bluder guided Iowa to its first Sweet 16 appearance since 1996. In 2019, she notched the program’s first Elite Eight since in 1993, when the Hawkeyes made the Final Four. 

The 63-year-old coach has won 884 career games and is one of 24 college basketball head coaches to amass over 850 victories. Triumphing in a little over 69 percent of her games, Bluder is the 10th-winningest coach in NCAA women’s basketball. She led the Hawkeyes to 18 NCAA Tournaments, five Big Ten Tournament titles, and two trips to the national championship game. 

The Naismith Coach of the Year in 2019, Bluder also won three Big Ten Coach of the Year awards. 

“There is never an ideal time to retire and I am sure this fall that I will miss the games, the practices, the road trips, the atmosphere, the tremendous fans and, most importantly, the players,” she said. “But my belief in the foundation of this program, knowing that success is now an unrelenting component of women’s basketball at the University of Iowa gives me comfort as I transition to become the program’s biggest champion.” 

“It is my hope that now with more time and energy, I can be an asset to our basketball program and this athletics department in any way that I am able.”