The 2024 Big Ten basketball media day marks the start of a new chapter for women’s basketball.
Among the several key departures across the conference, Caitlin Clark sits at the top of that list of those who’ll be missed. The Des Moines, Iowa, player was the poster child to several broken hoops and viewership records during her four-year college tenure with Iowa — her talents now belonging to the WNBA.
Nobody can replace Clark, and that’s fine. Her impact, however, will remain with the sport for the foreseeable future.
“The fact that the game is healthy, the bar is raised, and the interest has been raised — you hope a lot of that is sticky and people keep coming back,” Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti said. “When you have these breakout moments, breakout games, breakout players that you just throw from there — and there’s no doubt what happened in Iowa elevated all of them.”
The Iowa women’s basketball program is going through the biggest shift of all teams involved. First-year head coach Jan Jensen, the successor to former head coach Lisa Bluder, knows the pressure that comes with taking the chair at this specific time.
Regardless, she carries the same mentality as Petitti when it comes to serving the loyal Hawkeye fanbase.
“I feel like, moving forward, the standard has been set,” Jensen said. “What makes Iowa so special is that everybody’s been along for the ride … You want to continue having a product which is worthy for people to really be proud of.”
Not only are Iowa fans coming back for what’s expected to be another season of good hoops, they look to be all-in for this new-look team — as season tickets were sold out within minutes of going on sale. This will be the second-straight year the program accomplished this feat.
“It just showed how much Iowa supports women’s basketball,” third-year big Hannah Stuelke said. “Even now that Caitlin’s gone, they’re still coming; they’re still going to show up; they’re still going to do everything that they can to support us. And I think that speaks volumes.”
The Iowa women’s basketball culture was put on display for the country to see. One of those people who took note of it was Lucy Olsen.
The former Villanova guard finished the 2023-24 season third in scoring in the nation with 23.3 points per game, only trailing Clark and Juju Watkins. After the season, she hit the transfer portal and committed to Iowa eight days later.
The culture and fans played a key role in Olsen’s commitment, and she knows it’s going to be a different scenery than what she’s experienced her past three seasons.
“It’s going to be very different,” Olsen said. “Our fans were great, but it’s nothing compared to what the Iowa community has. I’m just super excited to walk out on that court when the arena is filled and there’s people there cheering for us.”
And with one superstar departing comes other superstars filling that void.
The Big Ten added several big names when the conference added USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington as a part of its expansion: Watkins, Kiki Iriafen, Kiki Rice, Lauren Betts, and Dalayah Daniels.
That’s not including the stars on original Big Ten teams: Makira Cook, Shyanne Sellers, Alexis Markowski, Cotie McMahon, Serah Williams, and of course Olsen and Stuelke.
It’s one thing to add four new teams to a conference coming off of a booming season. It’s another thing when one of those teams includes the next face of women’s college basketball in Watkins, who will surely draw viewers to the game.
So despite the departure of one of the biggest collegiate figures to ever hit the sport in Caitlin Clark, women’s college basketball in the Big Ten is only going up from here.
“We’re in a really good position,” Petitti said. “I give Iowa credit. They did things to make sure — having an outdoor game of 55,000 people, right? When you see something working, you get more creative. So it’s our job to keep it going.”