For Hawkeyes, That Was Then And This Is Now

Last season's run to the Elite Eight is in the past for Iowa's women's basketball team.

Magic runs are fleeting in college basketball.

It wasn’t that long ago that Iowa’s women’s basketball player had the national player of the year, won the Big Ten Tournament title, and made it to the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament.

March is a long way from October.

Center Megan Gustafson left as the school’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder, taking with her almost every national honor after a dominating career.

Gustafson, along with forward Hannah Stewart and guard Tania Davis, provided a senior foundation for a 29-7 season that included a 14-4 mark in the Big Ten.

Foundations, though, don’t last in college basketball.

“It wouldn’t have been possible without the three great seniors and the leadership they had,” sophomore center Monika Czinano said at Thursday's media day. “But we’re excited to show what we can do now, that this is a whole new year and that’s how we’re approaching it.”

“Obviously we're coming off a pretty historic year, and the excitement of our team is still there,” coach Lisa Bluder said. “You might think that's kind of crazy, considering what we lost, but when you have that type of success, you just want more, and you know what it takes to get it now.

“This team has a mission to prove people wrong. They have an opportunity — again, they've kind of got a chip on their shoulder a little bit. We know what we lost. We lost three key ingredients, three terrific starters that had tremendous experience for our basketball team, but this team is not ready to throw up the white flag.”

The Hawkeyes weren’t among the top five in the preseason Big Ten poll announced earlier in the week, but that doesn’t seem to bother them.

“Last year at this time, I think we were predicted to be at the top of the Big Ten,” senior guard Makenzie Meyer said. “I think my freshman year and my sophomore year, we were the underdogs, and we liked playing in that position, knowing that people don’t have that high of an expectation on us. It really helps that last year we saw what it takes to be great, what it takes to get to the NCAA tournament and make a run in the NCAA tournament. I think that’s going to help this year.”

Asked the difference between last season and this season, and Meyer laughed.

“Obviously, looking at us, we’re a lot smaller,” she said. “We’re going to get down the court quicker, and our threat is going to come from the perimeter.”

Last year, the Hawkeyes’ offense went through Gustafson. Now, it’s going to be more of a one-post offense that seems to fit the Bluder style.

“It’s going to be more guard-oriented,” said senior guard Kathleen Doyle, a preseason All-Big Ten selection. “It’s just exciting. It’s a change, for sure. Change is hard, but it’s also exciting.”

“I do think that we are going to be back to more of a perimeter team, and a couple of years ago we changed our style based on what we had coming back, and the strength of some of those players, so now we feel like this is an opportunity to go back to more of a guard-based offense,” Bluder said. “For them, it's really fun. You have an opportunity to drive and dish and hit open threes, and it just gives you more room to operate than the offense that we ran the last couple years as far as guards. I think that the guards are going to enjoy that.”

The Hawkeyes got some time this summer to figure it out. They got extra practice and game time with a trip to Spain.

“We had 10 practice days, and when you're teaching a new offense, you basically have 13 freshmen on the floor, and you don't have that typically,” Bluder said. “You usually have your upperclassmen able to bring along your freshmen, and we didn't have that luxury this year, so those 10 practice days came at an ideal time for us.

“And it also pointed some things out to us coaches that we needed to really work on in these 30 days leading up to the first game, things that maybe we hadn't taught as well or maybe some things that we hadn't put enough emphasis on once competition came into play over there. I think those are good things for us coaches, as well, to see.”

“It took a learning curve,” Meyer said. “It took a while for us to just get comfortable playing outside the perimeter, not having Megan to throw the ball into with five seconds (on the shot clock) for her to score. So it took a while. I think we’ve adjusted.”

“It’s definitely an offense that’s guard-oriented,” Doyle said. “Teamwork is essential in it, so we have to work well together in it.”

Bluder didn’t shy away from questions about last season during her press conference on Thursday, but she would quickly turn the narrative back to now.

Foundations change.

“I think that every year coming in you always want to do better than what you're expected to do, right?” Bluder said. “I think that's the competitive angle in all of us. So I think there's a little bit of that in us, as well.

“I think it's fun for coaches to kind of, in the offseason, figure out what's going to work best for the team you have coming back, and what adjustments you can make, what kind of tweaks can you do to figure out how that best suits this team. To me that's the fun part of coaching.”