The Athletic shares preseason Iowa women’s basketball ranking
The Iowa Hawkeyes are coming off a magical 2022-23 season. Though it ended in disappointment versus LSU inside American Airlines Center, Iowa advanced to its first national championship game.
The Hawkeyes also enjoyed a historic individual 2023 NCAA Tournament from superstar guard Caitlin Clark. The West Des Moines native registered single-tournament scoring and assists records with her 191 points and 60 assists.
Clark became the first women’s player to register back-to-back 40-point scoring performances in the NCAA Tournament in wins over Louisville and South Carolina. Her 41 points against the Gamecocks were the most ever in semifinal history and she also scored or assisted on all 18 of Iowa’s fourth-quarter points in the win.
Clark averaged 27.8 points, 8.6 assists, 7.1 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game, while shooting 47.3% from the field and 38.9% from 3-point range.
With Clark returning alongside fellow starting guards Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall, the Hawkeyes have a nucleus that has combined to start 298 games over the past three seasons.
Martin and Marshall averaged 7.7 and 6.2 points per game last season. Martin also ranked second on the Hawkeyes last season with 3.6 assists and fourth with 4.2 rebounds per game.
All of this has Iowa entering the 2023-24 women’s college basketball season with lofty expectations once again. The Athletic just released its preseason top 25 rankings where Iowa checks in as the No. 6 team to begin this season.
The Athletic’s top five looks like this: defending champion LSU is No. 1, UConn is No. 2, UCLA is No. 3, South Carolina is No. 4 and Utah is No. 5. After Iowa, the rest of the top 10 features No. 7 Ohio State, No. 8 Virginia Tech, No. 9 Indiana and No. 10 Texas.
Contact/Follow us @HawkeyesWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Iowa news, notes, and opinions.
Follow Josh on Twitter: @JoshOnREF
We occasionally recommend interesting products and services. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. Hawkeyes Wire operates independently, though, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.
