Media day for the Iowa women’s basketball program offered visual evidence of a brand-new era, with the presence of a new head coach in Jan Jensen, a flashy new point guard in Lucy Olsen and five exciting but untested freshmen.

But the biggest difference in feel was because of the one person who wasn’t there.

Caitlin Clark is gone, though the excitement for Hawkeye women’s basketball sure isn’t. Every ticket at Carver-Hawkeye Arena for the upcoming season has been sold, with enormous expectations and hope surrounding a program that has reached back-to-back national championship games.

Before this season gets rolling – the first real game is Nov. 6 vs. Northern Illinois – this is a great moment to stop, breathe, ingest some perspective … and keep expectations realistic about the 2024-25 season.

Believe in Jensen, who has a sharp basketball mind. Believe in veterans like Sydney Affolter and Hannah Stuelke to excel after offseason knee operations. Believe in Olsen, who by all accounts has been a great player and teammate. Believe in this freshman class, which looks pretty impressive.

But just don’t forget who was lost and cannot be replaced.

Clark was arguably one of the top five basketball players in the world in 2024, and she played much of that time for the Iowa Hawkeyes. The all-time Division I basketball scoring leader – men or women – accounted for, conservatively, 60 points per game a year ago, between her scoring (31.6 per game) and assists (8.9 average) and ability to get others more open space (and free-throw attempts) over the flow of the game.

“She was probably responsible for like 90% of our points,” Hawkeye junior Jada Gyamfi said.

Clark’s value in the intangible categories, though, is what Jensen and her coaching staff will miss the most.

Assistant coach Raina Harmon flashed back to Hannah Stuelke’s 47-point game against Penn State – fiercely driven by Clark’s 15 assists – and then Clark telling her afterward in a press conference, “You can do that every night.” Clark’s legendary intensity and dreams of taking Iowa to a Final Four spilled over to her teammates’ work habits. She challenged them to get more practice time in the gym. She helped them all raise their games. She got younger players like Stuelke to believe in themselves.

“Caitlin believed that anything was possible,” Harmon said. “… That’s probably the biggest thing that we’ll miss, somebody that sets their sights way, way high and challenges everybody else to meet that expectation.”

Assistant coach Abby Stamp, in watching Clark dominate with the WNBA’s Indiana Fever all summer, was reminded of another element that the Hawkeyes will need to replace.

“The ‘never quit’ that you develop when you play with Caitlin Clark is really pretty crazy, because you can come back from anything,” Stamp said. “You can rattle off 15 points in two minutes, or whatever it may be.”

And then there’s the late-game situations. Clark could score from 35 feet or by driving to the hoop or by finding a teammate for an open 3. Olsen has some of that ability, we’re told, but there is no replacing someone like Clark, not to mention departed seniors like Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall and Molly Davis.

Jensen spent a significant portion of her Thursday news conference talking about how the biggest void without Clark will be that ability to empower a team to go into Maryland and come away with a victory. And to meet adversity and respond to it. Especially in the final 26 months of her Iowa career, Clark led the Hawkeyes to exceptional victories and unforgettable moments that were driven by harsh disappointments.

Yet in the outside world, there is chatter that this can be a Final Four team again. That’s a great thing to shoot for. Maybe, maybe, if everything goes incredibly well, that could be a slim possibility five months from now. But more realistically, the Hawkeyes would do well to be an NCAA Tournament team. That’s not easy. A realistic ceiling might be a top-four hosting seed for the NCAA Tournament. But talk like that should be months from happening.

This overhauled, mostly young team needs space to grow, space to fail. Placing Clark-era expectations on these players isn’t fair to them.

Short-term, Iowa players have talked about starting with the mentality of protecting their home floor. Doing that successfully will unlock a lot of possibilities. That is a good mindset for fans, too, to bring it for the home games. Continue to make Carver-Hawkeye Arena a difficult place to play for opponents.

“The outside noise is always going to have high expectations, no matter what,” Affolter said. “They’re going to want us to win. More than anything, we need to stick together.”

Just as media day ended, I caught up with Jensen for one last question. We talked about how football coach Kirk Ferentz, someone Jensen greatly respects, is a master of establishing and managing expectations.

To that end: What does Jensen think are realistic expectations for her first Hawkeye team?

I would encourage everyone to read and process this answer and remember it in November, December and beyond as this team finds its way.

“I honestly think patience rules the day for our staff, for our team and for the fans,” Jensen said. “I don’t mean that to undersell and take any pressure off. I just think that’s truthful. Because it takes time to meld a whole new era.

“For them to kind of learn how to play with each other, and to really manage the home crowd and manage the hostile crowds they’ll go into – not being the fault of their own, right?

“They’re going to be hated, and they’re going to be circled, and they’re going to be the bad guys. And they’re just freshmen, trying to figure it out. There’s a lot that we’re going to have to manage.

“If we’re expecting this team to go undefeated, that’s mistaken. Would we love that? Yes. But there’s going to be a lot of pit stops and speed bumps and learning. Patience will rule the day.”

A jarring revelation from Hannah Stuelke

Stuelke locked down Iowa’s “5” spot almost all of last season. She was asked to run up and down the floor. She had to take on South Carolina’s 6-foot-7 Kamilla Cardoso in the national championship game. She scored 47 points against Penn State. She put up 23 clutch points in the national semifinals against UConn and averaged 14.0 points and 6.6 rebounds per game.

And she did it all on one good leg.

Stuelke revealed on Thursday that she injured her knee in the “Crossover at Kinnick” game nearly one year ago and battled through it all last season. Getting through the season required tons of treatment, before and after practices and games.

After an offseason surgery, she is finally back. She returned to practice four weeks ago. Jensen also confessed that Stuelke and Affolter, who had a recent knee surgery, have yet to practice together since Iowa’s national championship game loss to the Gamecocks.

The good news, finally?

“(Recovery) has been pretty seamless. I did my rehab the whole summer,” Stuelke said. “It feels great. A lot better than last year.”

Stuelke will probably play some “4” (when Ava Heiden or Addison O’Grady are on the floor) and some “5.” Even though the “4” is her more natural position, she’s gotten more comfortable at the “5.” Her ability to run up and down the court, especially on the fast break, is a valuable weapon for the Hawkeyes.

“So, 5 or 4, she’s going to be great, wherever you put her,” Jensen said. “We would like to play her at the power forward.”

Don’t sleep on Kylie Feuerbach

Replacing Caitlin Clark is one thing. Also replacing Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall is another.

Iowa might be finding a partial replacement plan with fifth-year senior Kylie Feuerbach, who like Martin suffered an early-career torn ACL and now senses some urgency as her college time enters the home stretch. Feuerbach, like Marshall, is a tremendous defensive player. Affolter said nobody in practice is shooting the 3-pointer better than Feuerbach.

“Kylie’s been doing a good job making a lot of extra plays on the court, kind of like in a Kate Martin kind of way. Like screen assists, getting deflections,” Iowa’s backcourt coach, Abby Stamp, said. “Making all the little plays out there that make a difference.

“She can really disrupt. She and Lucy (Olsen), their length and speed, they’re really elite defenders. That’s going to really help Kylie feed into her offense as well.”

With Affolter likely out until sometime in November as she recovers from a minor knee surgery, there’s no doubt that Feuerbach, who averaged 2.6 points and 13.9 minutes a game last year, will command a bigger role. She knows who she is – an excellent defender who has worked tirelessly this offseason on her outside shot.

“I’ve been very, very driven this (off)season,” Feuerbach said, “and I’m excited for what’s to come.”

A big recruiting weekend in Iowa City

The Jan Jensen era has yet to land a high school recruit. But the Hawkeyes remain engaged with several high-level prospects in the Classes of 2025 and 2026.

The Register has learned that committed Class of 2025 recruits Addie Deal and Journey Houston are headed to town, along with a bevy of other prospects that include 2025 top-100 posts Layla Hays of Wasilla, Alaska, and Manuella Alves-Fernandez from Brazil. The family of California wing McKenna Woliczko, a prized 2026 prospect, tweeted Thursday that she was on her way to Iowa City, too. Woliczko is the No. 9 prospect nationally.

Deal and Houston committed to Iowa when Lisa Bluder was still the head coach.

“We’ve been all over the country,” said Harmon, who has been tasked as the program’s lead recruiting assistant – something Jensen handled in her previous role. “What’s been really fun is that players from all over the country have been coming here to Iowa to visit us. At this point, you’ve got to (aim) high. We’re not looking to fall off here.”

Jensen’s vision for this program is to be great after Caitlin Clark. Doing so will require acquiring elite-level talent. But just like with the 2024-25 season … this is a process, and patience is important.