50 Iowa moments since Title IX: Iowa women’s basketball experiences 2 Big Ten titles, 3 sellouts in 22 days

Editor’s note: This is 43rd in a series counting down the Top 50 moments in Iowa Hawkeyes women’s athletics history in the 50 days leading up to the 50th anniversary of Title IX in June.

Lisa Bluder knows the odds — first, to be one of 14 teams to win one Big Ten championship; then, to be one of 14 teams to win a second Big Ten championship.

By what the Iowa women’s basketball coach described as “pure statistics” — excluding any advantages or disadvantages a particular team has — it’s about 0.5 percent.

It’s something, despite having consensus All-Americans like Megan Gustafson and Samantha Logic, Iowa had never accomplished. Not with Bluder. Not with C. Vivian Stringer. Not with any other coach.

Well, not until 2022.

The Hawkeyes took home Big Ten regular-season and tournament championships in 2022 while also having another experience “you dream about” three times at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Iowa women’s basketball sold out its last three games at Carver-Hawkeye Arena of 2021-22. The combined attendance from the sellouts was 43,820 — more than many Power Five programs have in an entire season.

“You dream about your sport having that kind of respect that it demands a sellout,” Bluder said, “and that your women have the same experience that men athletes have had for years and years.”

As Bluder thought about the “feeling when you walk out the tunnel” to a sellout crowd a few months later in her office, “it almost makes you emotional.”

“A lot of times, your dreams don’t come true,” Bluder said. “This one, we always wanted this to happen — and to happen three times in a row, it was amazing. It was the best feeling ever.”

Iowa’s dream-realizing February and March came despite falling out of the AP Top 25 earlier in the season.

“We had all kinds of obstacles,” Bluder said after the second Big Ten title. “And a lesser team could have just said, ‘Oh, just not our year. We've got next year. We've got everybody coming back.’ This group never did that.”

The three sellouts and two Big Ten titles all happened in a stretch of 22 days. The first net-cutting happened on Feb. 27.

“Their net-cutting game could use some work,” The Gazette’s Jeff Linder wrote after the game. “Play like they did Sunday, and the Iowa Hawkeyes will have more opportunities. Their basketball was both beautiful and brilliant.”

Iowa indeed kept playing like that, and that meant another net-cutting at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

The Hawkeyes came up just short of a third net-cutting opportunity, though, suffering a second-round upset to No. 10-seeded Creighton.

“I apologize to our fans that they couldn't celebrate a victory with us today,” Bluder said after the heartbreaking loss.

Iowa still had plenty to celebrate over the 22-day stretch, though, including overcoming that 0.5 percent probability.

Comments: (319) 398-8394; john.steppe@thegazette.com