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Five seniors, five stories: They’ll make their final Carver appearance Sunday
Sydney Affolter: “It’s definitely bittersweet. It’s special, but it’s sad. This place will always be home, for sure.”
Feb. 28, 2025 9:37 am, Updated: Feb. 28, 2025 11:10 am
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IOWA CITY — As she approached the interview table at Carver Hawkeye Arena on Thursday, Lucy Olsen’s omnipresent grin was accompanied by a pair of glistening eyes.
“People asked, ‘Why Iowa?’ when I came here,” she said. “They took a chance on me.
“From the start, it felt like family, and it really is like that. I knew there were going to be some ups and downs, playing with new teammates and new coaches, but it’s been even better than I imagined.
“I hoped I would love my new teammates, and I do.”
A transfer from Villanova and one-year Hawkeye, Olsen will headline a senior class of five that will play at Carver-Hawkeye Arena for the final time Sunday, when Iowa (19-9 overall, 9-8) hosts Wisconsin (13-15, 4-13) in the regular-season finale for both teams.
Tipoff is 3 p.m.
She’ll be joined by starters Sydney Affolter and Kylie Feuerbach, and posts Addison O’Grady and A.J. Ediger.
This will be the first Senior Day as a head coach for Jan Jensen.
“I haven’t had a lot of time to reflect, but whoa, there will be a lot of nostalgia and sentimentality,” Jensen said.
Her favorite part of this group is clear:
“They all held. They all stayed here (after Lisa Bluder retired and Jensen was hired as her replacement),” Jensen said. “In this new era, I’m really grateful for that.”
In the last few years, the Hawkeyes knew that they would be back home for the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. This year, they’ll be hitting the road, most likely as a 6-, 7- or 8-seed.
So this really, truly, is it at Carver.
“It’s definitely bittersweet,” Affolter said. “It’s special, but it’s sad. This place will always be home, for sure.”
Affolter has been a reserve for her first 2 1/2 seasons, but moved into the starting lineup during the Hawkeyes’ stretch run last season upon the injury of Molly Davis.
She blossomed there, earning all-tournament honors at the Big Ten tournament, and played a pivotal role as Iowa returned to the NCAA championship game.
This year, she averages 8.5 points and a team-high 8.3 rebounds per game. Her 24 points in Iowa’s win at Michigan on Wednesday was a career-high.
“I grew up with an older brother, and my dad would always have me go one-on-one with him,” Affolter said. “My toughness comes from that.”
Like Affolter, Feuerbach is an Illinois native. Her path to Iowa was circuitous; she transferred after one year at Iowa State, where she started 24 games as a freshman.
She missed the 2022-23 season due to a torn ACL and was never a big scorer. Instead, she was one of the programs best defenders in recent years.
“Both of the Final Four runs were special in their own way,” Feuerbach said. “The first year, I had to sit and watch, but that team was so special. And last year was so cool.”
As for next year ... she remains non-committal, as least publicly.
“I’m definitely taking it by ear,” she said. “Right now, I’m enjoying the last few weeks of this year’s team.”
When Olsen was recruited in high school, her choices were confined to the Philadelphia area.
“Nobody knew who I was,” she said.
In her third (and final) year at Villanova, she averaged 23.3 points, third-most in the nation. When she entered the transfer portal, everybody knew who she was.
Iowa got her, and she has performed as a first-team all-Big Ten level, particularly in the Hawkeyes’ current surge (seven wins in the last nine games).
“She’s just a joy,” Jensen said. “I loved recruiting her. It was like speed-dating. I thought, ‘wow, this kid fits.’ I wish we could have had her for four (years).”
Olsen needs 31 points to reach 2,000 for her career.
Whether as starter (18 games this season) or backup (the last 10, since Hannah Stuelke was moved from the ‘4’ to the post), O’Grady has enjoyed the best season of her career at 10.4 points per game and a 63-percent shooting rate from the field.
“I can’t explain how fast it went,” she said. “It’s been a lot of fun this season, getting to see how my work has paid off.”
Some of her best work came defensively against Angel Reese in last year’s Elite Eight game with LSU.
Imagine being a major in an extremely challenging academic field (chemical engineering, for O’Grady) and being away from campus for two weeks in March/April.
“Those Final Four runs were difficult. Chem-E and basketball don’t always line up well,” she said. “But I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
As for Ediger, the media finally learned for what her initials stood (it’s Allison Jaye).
Minutes have been few, playing behind the likes of Monika Czinano, then Stuelke and O’Grady.
“The kids in front of her, A.J. made them better,” Jensen said.
A Michigan native, Ediger is grateful that her status as a college athlete has given her a platform to speak about her passion.
“Diversity, equality and inclusion ... social justice is important to me,” she said. “I want to be remembered as a phenomenal teammate.”
Like her classmates, Ediger has spent the last few days in reflection.
“It’s been an incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience I’ve had here,” she said.
Comments: jeff.linder@thegazette.com
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