Women's Basketball Quotebook: Bluder Hopes For Another Big Year of Attendance

Hawkeyes ranked ninth nationally last season in home attendance.

HawkeyeMaven

Iowa’s women’s basketball team ranked ninth among NCAA Division I teams in home attendance last season.

The Hawkeyes were quite popular last season, reaching the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament behind center Megan Gustafson, who nearly swept the national player of the year honors.

Gustafson graduated, and expectations aren’t quite as high for the Hawkeyes this season, but Bluder thinks the fan base will be back this season.

The Hawkeyes averaged 6,797 fans during the season, and during the first weekend of the NCAA tournament the three games at Carver-Hawkeye Arena averaged 10,720 for the first round and 12,376 for the second round.

“Those are some really remarkable numbers when you think of the size of our community,” Bluder said at Thursday’s media day. “And it just shows you how this state got behind the team, and I'm hoping that we can keep that excitement going and keep bringing those people back to Carver because I think they did fall in love with the women on our team, and I think that it'll happen again this year. The attendance was spectacular. Our fans are the best in the country, and we appreciate that.”

Iowa’s nonconference home games include three NCAA tournament qualifiers — Drake, Clemson and Princeton. The Hawkeyes also have Big Ten preseason favorite Maryland at home on Jan. 9.

Bluder was reminded of that second-round NCAA tournament crowd, when the Hawkeyes defeated Missouri.

“Yeah, it was amazing, and I hope we get that kind of crowd again this year,” Bluder said. “I hope that people enjoyed what they saw last year and want to come out and support this group of women, and sure, there's going to be some growing pains. That's to be expected, I think. But if people liked the way that we played on the floor, they're still going to see that same kind of play.”

On the other side

Tania Davis was a guard on last year’s Iowa team, and then went into coaching, working as a graduate assistant at Clemson this season.

Which means she’ll be coming back to Carver-Hawkeye Arena on the opposing bench for that Dec. 4 ACC/Big Ten Challenge game.

“Maybe you don't want your starting point guard from the last four years on an opposing team, but that's the way it is,” Bluder quipped. “It'll be fun to welcome Tania back to Carver-Hawkeye Arena.”

The exposure

The Hawkeyes got plenty of exposure last season — the coverage of Gustafson’s senior season, the Big Ten Tournament championship, and then the run to the NCAA regional finals.

Bluder said it has had an impact in recruiting.

“Well, after we won the Big Ten Tournament, we did a home visit in Minnesota and got a commitment, so I think that kind of shows you the impact that that had,” Bluder said. “We're seeing a lot of great interest from younger women, but you know, we had really already gotten ... we had three commitments that we're going to sign in November, already by early last year. So I don't know that there was a huge push last year because we had already gotten our commitments.”

The retirement of No. 10

Gustafson’s jersey number 10 is expected to be retired at some point this season, but it all depends on when Gustafson can get back to the United States.

Gustafson, who played for the WNBA’s Dallas Wings this summer, is playing for a pro team in Hungary this winter.

“We're still trying to work on when she will be back in order to have that happen,” Bluder said.