Atmosphere at ISU-Iowa women’s game at Carver was just like old (but still new) times

IOWA CITY — This is the year 1 AC here. After Caitlin.

There was no way the air couldn’t seep out of the balloon at least a little at Carver-Hawkeye Arena with the unworldly Caitlin Clark gone. All the amazing times here in the last few years with the crowd volume dialed up to 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 — you can’t duplicate it.

Except …

Except if you’d been dropped into Carver Wednesday night not knowing Clark was a 1-year WNBA veteran, and you’d been duped into believing she instead came back for one last college season, and you’d been blindfolded, and the public address announcer didn’t name any players’ names, and you only listened to the crowd noise …

You’d say Clark still is doing Clark things here.

No. 21 Iowa trailed through most of Wednesday’s game, but dominated the fourth quarter and got a 75-69 win over No. 18 Iowa State before a capacity crowd of 14,998 that tried to blow the roof off the dump with its cheering. Not just during the erasure of a 10-point third-quarter deficit, but all game.

“It was really fun,” said Iowa guard Lucy Olsen, who matched her high as a Hawkeye with 25 points. “I’ve never been in anything like it.”

Olsen was third in the nation in scoring last year at Villanova, is in a mighty fine women’s basketball conference, the Big East. But her 22-win Wildcats team averaged 2,005 fans at home, 2,617 on the road.

There were no guarantees Olsen would get to play here in front of crowds equal to what Clark and Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall enjoyed last season when Carver was sold out for the season in advance. Yet, it’s 14,998 tickets sold for every game.

Olsen, who may have already set a team record for smiles in one season, has an audience for her talent.

“The very first exhibition game, her eyes were like ‘Oh my gosh, this is amazing,’” said Iowa Coach Jan Jensen. “And I told her, ‘Wait till we really hit the games that our fans are not going to give up their tickets for, right? You’re not going to believe what it’s going to be like.’”

Jensen is Iowa’s first-year head coach, but she’s been here since 2000. This sellout stuff still is new here. It wasn’t a sellout here two years ago when 10th-ranked Iowa State lost to No. 16 Iowa here, 70-57.

A future National Player of the Year (Megan Gustafson) and a future Big Ten Player of the Year (Kathleen Doyle) were on the Iowa teams that beat the Cyclones here in 2016 and 2018. Those games had 4,579 and 6,289 fans.

So why was Jensen confident the Carver volume dial would stay close to 11 this season?

“I think maybe because I’ve been here for 24 years and know so many of our fans,” she said. “They’ve been with us.

“There was a really great group of fans that were in that top 25 (in NCAA attendance), in that top 20. But then what was remarkable, we have a kid that ended up being the Time (magazine) Athlete of the Year yesterday. And she shoots from Kinnick, and she does it with a flair that’s never before seen.

“And this fan base, what I’m so nostalgic about is man, they got rewarded to be part of that. And I didn’t think they were all going to go away.”

The old fans knew the Lisa Bluder/Jensen-coached Iowa teams didn’t just start playing a fun, up-tempo, fast, skilled game when Clark joined them. Meanwhile, the many who hopped on the Clark rocket learned to love the Hawkeyes team in a hurry.

“I didn’t know if we’d sell it out (for the season),” Jensen said, “but I didn’t think we would not have a good amount of fans.”

She said she was emotional when she learned the tickets were all bought again this season. Wednesday, emotion was seen and heard throughout the arena.

It’s not a big game unless the opponent is good. Cyclone sophomore center Audi Crooks was Audi-matic for three quarters on her way to 31 points. Afterward, ISU Coach Bill Fennelly lauded the crowd and the Hawkeyes.

“It’s cool when the bus is coming in and there's traffic and people,” Fennelly said. “That's what young people deserve. And I think our state is a state has embraced women's basketball for a long time.”

It’s 1 AC. But the traffic-snarling, Carver cone-snarfing fans are still hooked. The Hawkeyes rewarded them yet again Wednesday.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com