No, it was talked about last year coming into the season. It hasn't been discussed because CC has been so fantastic this season. Iowa has gotten the most out of HS, but she is a forward playing out of position. The other 3 girls are "lacking".
So who should she have pursued that would have been interested in coming to Iowa? Betts and Morrow made clear they had no interest in Iowa. Who else was out there that might have said yes to Iowa?
There have been numerous threads discussing Iowa’s pursuit of a big to replace Czinano, particularly regarding Betts from Stanford. This is definitely not a new conversation topic.
Agreed we should have paid big $ for Betts or Morrow
Lauren Betts was locked into UCLA before her name hit the portal.
She did actually. No consistent post presence has been a glaring weakness on both end of the court. Stuelke is a forward trying to play the post. We’ve gotten by but we havent played many ranked opponents and we’ve now lost to two of them. We won’t last long in the tournament this year.
While an elite post would have been great, we just needed a decent player that can D up a bigger post & is a reasonable enough threat on O to score or force double-teams.
Yep. Besides she is in record as saying they tried but couldn't find one who was interested and I'm sure money came into play as well.
I’ve said all season watching this team that it feels like sweet 16 will be as far as this team will go.
Don’t quarrel with your analysis, just interested who in the portal met your criteria and might have been open to Iowa?
In other words, next years women’s team will revert to being the men’s b-ball team.
Correct. Staff was in the Valley here and made a run at Lauren Ware from Tucson, who ultimately chose Texas A & M.
Aren't there several really good recruits coming in next year? They will certainly take a significant step back. But there might be some solid talent there to build a future around. Plus we are going to get Maddyn Greenway in a few years too.
Without McMahon Ohio State lost by 30.
You obviously did not read the board after Championship game last year.
This is of course the one thing that people either ignore or overlook. This isn't the mens portal there guys. Outside of Betts please give us YOUR list of just WHO the bigs were that were in the portal that Lisa didn't go after. I could wait for your answer,but already knowing that there were NO other bigs in the portal that would have been an upgrade. your list will be hard to come by, but please do the leg work and let us know who she "botched the portal"on.....
agreed sweet16 is probably the high water mark for this team. No offense to the existing players at the 5. but they will not be effective against physical teams. JMO, but time will tell, and I hope I am wrong.
I am not the one saying Bluder botched the portal, Chicagoherky71 is. Think you may have replied to wrong message.
There were over 100 WBB players 6ft2 or taller entered the portal this past offseason. Granted, more than half of those players would not fare well in a major college program such as Iowa. But many - more than a dozen - would excel at Iowa and quite a few ended up choosing a B10/SEC/PAC school.
How many 5’s were in the portal last year? Our current bar is so low, guessing at least 20% of them would be a decent upgrade.
Umm…KState on line 3. Yes, we got the rematch but that showed where we are massively vulnerable
You're assuming that there was $500k available to womens program to use on NIL. This at a time when Barta was still not talking to the Swarm Collective so it was severely hamstrung in its fundraising efforts.
This would not have come from the Swarm. It would have been outside of it. Get a big donor or big company to do it. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Just look at Rutgers men’s basketball for next season. That’s how it should have been done. Not sure who is paying for two of the top three guys in next years class to play basketball at Rutgers, rumor is Jersey Mike’s.
