Yes
It may not look great right now, but Iowa women’s basketball can and will still make the NCAA tournament.
The team has had its fair share of setbacks starting this past offseason with Kate Martin, Gabbie Marshall, and of course, Caitlin Clark, all moving on from the program. This, combined with the departure of 24-year head coach Lisa Bluder, left a sizable hole the team would have to work hard to fill.
While not always perfect or as polished as last season, nothing changes the fact that Iowa fans knew this would happen. We knew the team would have setbacks, that the Hawkeyes would graduate a lot of flashy shots and the points that came with them. But by and large, the team has done a good job of holding its own.
New head coach Jan Jensen had the best start to coaching tenure in program history with an 8-0 run to kick off the season. While the losses have since started to rear their heads, Iowa’s seven defeats have only been by a combined 36 points. In other words, there’s an average of 5-6 points between the Hawkeyes and their foes with every loss.
The tail end of the season isn’t going to be easy, but nobody said it was going to be. The Big Ten is arguably the strongest conference in the sport, and the addition of four former Pac-12 schools has only increased the intensity of the gauntlet. So, while Iowa may not be favored, the Hawkeyes are still very much alive, armed with multiple standout players, including talented, top-ranked, first-year players.
The final component will be the Big Ten tournament, as doing well in this would increase Iowa’s chances drastically. Of 18 Big Ten competitors, all but three will make the Big Ten tournament. With Iowa boasting wins over Penn State, Purdue, and Washington already, they are in a prime position to at least qualify for this bracket, which could give them rematches of close games, such as Michigan State and Oregon, which they dropped by a combined three points.
Iowa has a chance, and this program has shown that a chance is all it needs.
No
The Iowa women’s basketball team’s recent five-game losing streak puts its NCAA tournament hopes in serious jeopardy.
It was just two weeks ago when the Hawkeyes were a ranked team atop the Big Ten conference. But as it currently stands, the Hawkeyes hold a 3-6 Big Ten record and a 13-7 overall record, good enough for the 13th and 12th spots, respectively.
Can they make up the ground they suddenly lost? It’s a tall task when you observe the remainder of the schedule.
Iowa has a favorable matchup against Northwestern coming up on Jan. 28 — a good opportunity to notch a second-straight win. But right after that, the Hawkeyes take on Juju Watkins and No. 4 USC.
After that comes No. 23 Minnesota, Nebraska, Rutgers, No. 12 Ohio State, No. 1 UCLA, No. 24 Michigan, and Wisconsin before heading into the Big Ten tournament. Rutgers and Wisconsin sit below Iowa in the standings as of now, while Nebraska is sitting right outside the top 25 teams with a better conference and overall record than No. 24 Michigan.
If there’s one takeaway from watching this team, it’s that turnovers and defense have been a problem all season long.
The Hawkeyes typically win games by simply outsourcing the other team rather than stopping them from scoring. Of the nine games remaining, six of those future opponents score more points per game than Iowa, and four of those teams — UCLA, USC, Ohio State, and Michigan — score north of 80 points an outing.
And the sloppy play on offense will become more costly as each game is played. Ohio State and USC average double-digit steals on top of those two, UCLA and Minnesota holding opponents to less than 60 points on average.
Now, by no means does Iowa have a zero percent chance to pull off a stretch where it wipes out most of these teams. But the odds aren’t in their favor right now.
And it will certainly take a lot of luck to actually clinch that postseason spot.