“Ava! Ava!” could be an often-heard chant at Iowa women’s basketball this season

IOWA CITY — Tuesday morning, Jan Jensen was making sure at her team’s media day that we knew this was the youngest Iowa women’s basketball team since 2013.

About an hour later, Associated Press told us the Hawkeyes are 21st in its preseason rankings.

When you’ve become an established national program like Iowa, expectations override excuses even if nine of your players are sophomores or freshmen.

It’s a program that has won at least 19 games in each of the last 18 seasons. It’s had a winning Big Ten record the last eight campaigns. With Caitlin Clark, it was the most-popular college team in any sport.

It is a program that has kept its bounce two years after Clark and the two straight treks to the national championship game. It once again has sold all its season-tickets. The women’s hoopers still may have tighter holds on Hawkeye heartstrings than any of the school’s other teams, football included. As long as it keeps winning.

Jensen knows it, says she embraces it, says her program is “chasing greatness.” Based on the way she has escalated recruiting efforts and added blue-chippers from Oregon, California and Alaska the last few years, it’s hard to argue.

This year’s team is young, yes. Yet, Iowa does have three significant seniors who have seen it all in forward Hannah Stuelke and guards Kylie Feuerbach and Taylor McCabe.

But if freshman guard Addie Deal is everything she’s billed to be, hello. And if sophomore center Ava Heiden builds on the way she finished last season? Whoa.

As what typically happens with even the best freshmen post players, Heiden’s first college season had fits and starts. Her first postseason, however, was a revelation.

The 6-foot-4 Oregonian made 11 of 14 shots and had 27 points and 11 rebounds in 34 minutes over three Big Ten tournament games.

In the Big Ten tourney, Hawkeye fans were chanting “Ava! Ava!” after she scored all of her career-high 11 points in the last 12:44 of Iowa’s second-round game against 24th-ranked Michigan State. She also played great defense. The game was tied when Heiden entered. Iowa won, 74-61.

The ways she ran the court to score in transition and how she beat defenders to the basket in set plays? That wasn’t the young woman who played sporadically and inconsistently through much of her first season.

“It may have seemed like a light bulb,” Heiden said Tuesday, “but it was just a constant kind of uphill progress.”

Heiden followed that with 15 points and 7 rebounds in Iowa’s first-round NCAA tournament win over Murray State, whetting Hawkeye fans’ appetites for what she can do in the future.

“She just went for it, and used that kind of disappointment at which she wasn't maybe playing as much as she’d like and she wasn't quite as consistent,” Jensen said. “And then it kind of clicked for her. Then when it clicked, boy, she went gangbusters.”

Iowa plays against six teams ranked higher than 21st. It will face great centers and power forwards like UCLA’s Lauren Betts, Connecticut’s Sarah Strong and Iowa State’s Audi Crooks. It needs Heiden to be a steady frontcourt partner for Stuelke. She could be much more than that.

At the end of last season, Heiden said she thought ‘OK, I got it. I'm settled, looking forward to next season.’

“Now I have the tools and the capability to perform well. Of course there will be ups and downs this year, too, and the next year and the next year. But I feel more confident and I'm ready to attack this year.”

Jensen and assistant coach Randi Peterson develop big players. Addison O’Grady stepped up last season, going from 3.9 points per game the year before to 9.3. Monika Czinano simply was stellar on the 2023 Final Four team.

Before them was Megan Gustafson, who will be in a WNBA championship parade Friday with her Las Vegas Aces. Ava Heiden, your time is now.

“She's been running the floor tremendously, finishing very well,” Jensen said. “Yeah, I'm really proud of how much she's grown since last year.

“I think Ava can be absolutely amazing.”

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