Kirkwood women’s basketball ranked fourth despite younger roster

CEDAR RAPIDS — It’s the million-dollar question in women’s college basketball.

Will Caitlin Clark turn pro in 2024 or utilize her fifth year of NCAA athletics eligibility, granted due to the COVID-19 pandemic?

At the junior college level, NJCAA student-athletes have two years of eligibility, making this season essentially the first without ‘COVID year’ eligible players.

It’s something Kirkwood women’s basketball coach Kim Muhl and his staff are feeling.

“I think a lot of people are trying to figure out things this year because this is the year the COVID kids are gone for us at our level,” Muhl said. “Everybody says Clark, you know, Caitlin gets another year, but that’s a four-year school. Last year was it for us.”

Muhl believes the events of 2020 may have hindered the development of some of his current players, due to games or entire seasons being lost when they were in high school.

“The high school kids we’re getting, they probably had a year off,” Muhl said. “They might have played a little bit, but it was just such a screwed-up year for them and their development. They might be a year behind realistically at our level.

“You’ve got to coach them a lot more, I’m telling you. It's not like the last couple of years. I was spoiled because those kids were two- and three-year kids, they knew what was going on.”

Muhl has also noticed a dip in on-court communication compared to previous years.

“(During COVID) I do think kids were more isolated,” Muhl said. “They were isolated and now we're asking them to communicate to teammates and it's taking forever.”

Despite the challenges, the Eagles are ranked fourth in NJCAA Division II with a 16-2 record, 7-1 in the Iowa Community College Athletic Conference (ICCAC) after Wednesday’s 71-57 win over NIACC. Their only losses came against No. 2 Iowa Western and No. 11 Lake Land.

Muhl, who surpassed 1,000 wins as a coach and was inducted into Kirkwood’s Hall of Fame last season, has again managed to build a deep, talented roster.

“Every year we try to have five to seven sophomores,” Muhl said. “And when we have more than five, it's really beneficial."

Sophomores Demetria Prewitt, Kaylee Corbin, Emily Dreckman and freshman Jenna Twedt all have double-digit scoring averages for the Eagles.

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“We get good kids,” Muhl said. “Recruiting’s become very difficult, but it is what it is right now with everything that's going on in our world — the (NCAA transfer) portal and all that stuff.”

With 12 games left in the regular season and ICCAC play in full swing, Muhl hopes his team find its rhythm sooner rather than later.

“We've been sporadic and inconsistent, and I think that's because of youth and some of these other things … but I think you’re seeing that across the board at our level,” Muhl said. “We’re starting to hit it now — league is coming Wednesday-Saturday, Wednesday-Saturday. We’ve just got to get consistent.”