The one state with 2 Top 10 women’s basketball teams? That’s Iowa.

Another day, another realization this could be an extraordinary season for women’s college basketball in Iowa.

Associated Press’ preseason All-America team was announced Tuesday. To no surprise whatsoever, Iowa junior guard Caitlin Clark and Iowa State senior forward Ashley Joens were among the six players honored, and Clark was a unanimous pick.

Clark was first-team All-America and Joens second-team at the end of last season. Joens is ISU’s first preseason All-America.

Clark led the nation in scoring (27.0 points per game) and assists (8.0) for a Hawkeyes team that shared the Big Ten regular-season title and won the conference tournament. Joens averaged 20.3 points and 9.5 rebounds for the Cyclones, who went 28-7 and reached the NCAA tourney’s Sweet 16.

Iowa is No. 4 in the AP Top 25, its highest preseason ranking since 1994. Iowa State is No. 8, its highest preseason ranking since 1999. That makes us the only state with two top-10 teams.

That’s a lot of good stuff, and it’s just scratching the surface.

Iowa State has four starters back from last season, and has added 6-foot-6 Stephanie Soares, a two-time NAIA Division I Player of the Year. She averaged 20.5 points, 12.2 rebounds and 3.7 blocks last season for The Master's University in Santa Clarita, Calif.

Iowa has more than Clark, the biggest current magnet in women’s college ball. Monika Czinano is a force in the post, an first-team All-Big Ten player last season after averaging 21.2 points and making 67.9 percent of her shots.

“She’s a bucket,” Iowa men’s player Connor McCaffery said last season, and that says it as well as anything.

The Hawkeyes’ entire starting five from last season is back, in fact. This is a team that easily led the nation in field goal percentage (. 502) and free throw percentage (. 846) a season ago, and was second in scoring with 84.2 ppg.

Iowa added a veteran guard in Molly Davis, who averaged 18.6 points last season at Central Michigan.

Little of this is telling you women’s hoops fans in Iowa what you don’t already know. But the basketball world at large may take quite an interest to what’s going on here this winter.

Two top-10 teams. One-third of the preseason All-America first team. Ninety percent of their starters from last season.

Two arenas with a lot of fans inside them.

Iowa State, as always, was in the top three of NCAA women’s basketball attendance last season. It was second behind South Carolina, with 9,567 fans per game. It had the nation’s fourth-biggest crowd, 13,907 for Baylor.

Iowa was fifth, with an average of 8,224. The Hawkeyes had the nation’s No. 2 crowd, a 15,056 sellout for Michigan. Iowa also hosted the two largest non-Final Four crowds of the NCAA tournament, both sellouts.

Iowa has sold a program-record 6,000 season tickets. Clark is box office. Like the Hawkeyes’ male basketball counterparts, the Iowa women run an offense that is player-friendly. Lisa Bluder’s last two teams were the program’s all-time top two scoring clubs.

They play the way basketball is meant to be played, with a crisp pace and an inside-outside game that hinges on ball movement.

Iowa State was 16th in the nation in scoring last year and was second in the nation with 10.2 3-pointers per game and in 3-point shooting at 38.7 percent. So that’s pretty entertaining offense, too.

The upper deck at Hilton Coliseum has long held fans for Iowa State women’s games. The black curtains Carver-Hawkeye Arena to make its women’s games seem more intimate have been lifted for this entire season.

On Dec. 7, Iowa State will play Iowa at Carver. That will be something.

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