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Caitlin Clark is irreplaceable, but transfer Lucy Olsen is a heck of a Hawkeye replacement
Only Clark and USC’s JuJu Watkins outscored Olsen last season when she was in her third season of pouring in points at Villanova
Oct. 2, 2024 3:58 pm, Updated: Oct. 2, 2024 4:24 pm
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ROSEMONT, Ill. — It may sound odd to fans who just bid farewell to a player who scored 31 points a game, but having someone who has averaged 23 points in major-college basketball is a rare treat indeed.
No, Lucy Olsen won’t match Caitlin Clark’s nation-leading 31.6-point average of last season at Iowa. No, she won’t approach Clark’s nation-leading 8.9 assists per game.
Find a point guard who will do those two things in college basketball, and you’re looking at a mirage. She doesn’t exist. Not anymore.
Olsen isn’t Clark in many ways. “She doesn’t shoot it from Kinnick,” Iowa Coach Jan Jensen said. “She shoots it from the normal 3-point line. She can pass it, but she’s not going to really maybe make that three-quarter length pass.”
But, to land a transfer who averaged 23.3 points in the Big East last year and played for a Villanova team that was 43-14 in that league over her three seasons? There’s a player who was named to the preseason All-Big Ten team without most of the media and coaches who voted for her having seen her play.
It’s called hitting the NCAA transfer portal jackpot.
After choosing to enter the portal, Olsen said Iowa was “my first call.” The interest was mutual, immediately and understandably.
Lisa Bluder was still the head coach at the time, but Olsen didn’t waver when Bluder retired and Jensen was named her replacement. Iowa needed a proven hand at point guard, and Olsen wanted to play where the lights burn brighter on her way to what she hopes is a WNBA career.
“It’s going to be different,” Olsen said. She grew up in Collegeville, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb, then played her college ball in Philly.
“I thought I was going to be homesick for a little bit,” she said Wednesday at the Big Ten’s women’s basketball media day, “but I’ve just made such a connection. It does feel like a family that I have in Iowa.”
Olsen and Hannah Stuelke answered reporters’ questions while seated at a podium for a half-hour. Olsen laughed and smiled the entire time. This is different for her, maybe a little crazy. In Philadelphia, Villanova women’s basketball isn’t the talk of the town, or even its own campus.
The Wildcats’ average home crowd last season was 2,005, and that was coming off 30 wins and an NCAA Sweet 16 run the season before. Iowa averaged 14,914 (capacity) last season and apparently will again in the season ahead.
“Our fans were great,” Olsen said, “but nothing compares to what the Iowa community has. I’m super-excited to walk out on the court when the arena is filled.
“I always say that I played at UConn and there were a lot of fans there, but they were all booing us. So I’m excited for people cheering for us.”
What they’ll see in Olsen is a player who Jensen said “plays the midrange game about as well as I’ve seen it played.
“She plays with a pull-up jumper and has a little hitch to it. She can double-clutch it a little bit. … She kind of reminds me of a running back that’s small and they’re hard to tackle. She can create a seam and pull up and hit a fader.
“I think there’s a fun style to her play that’s exciting to watch because it’s all crafty.”
It hasn’t been the Iowa program’s way to rely much on transfers. It needed a point guard, though. None had signed on at Iowa once Clark joined the team until 2024 recruit Aaliyah Guyton, and she tore an ACL during last December at Peoria (Ill.) High and still is recovering.
“So with Lucy,” Jensen said, “there was a great need.
“I think it was one of the best bets in the portal this year and was just a great, great break for us. But I also think the way Lucy played (at Villanova) and the way she was allowed to score and create, we do that. Caitlin just played in different ways.”
Olsen has 134 career 3-pointers. Clark made 201 last season alone. Olsen, however, played in a big-time women’s basketball conference last season and was third in the nation in scoring behind Clark and USC’s JuJu Watkins.
“I’m not going to shoot really deep 3s,” Olsen said. “(Clark’s) passing was incredible. It’s going to be different.”
It may be as good as “different” could possibly be given the circumstances. There is only one Caitlin Clark. But there are darn few Lucy Olsens.
Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com
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