Iowa Coach Jan Jensen Clapped Back at Caitlin Clark Over Shooting Comment
The Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball team defeated Drake University on Sunday, which improved their 2024-25 record to 5-0.
This game was likely sentimental for first-year Hawkeyes head coach Jan Jensen, who played her college ball at Drake before joining Lisa Bluder's (who she succeeded at Iowa) coaching staff there.
A few days before the game, the Iowa women's basketball team'sย Instagram account postedย a video of Jensen's highlight reel and captioned it, "In honor of our matchup with Drake on Sunday, we present: ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ผ๐ณ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฎ๐น๐น๐ ๐๐ป๐ผ๐ณ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฎ๐น ๐๐ผ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ต ๐ ๐ ๐ถ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ฒ ๐ฝ".
This prompted some hilarious responses from her former players. Caitlin Clark dropped two comments; one of which was her saying, "This canโt be real ๐คฃ๐คฃ๐คฃ๐คฃ๐ญ๐ญ๐ญ๐ญ๐ญ๐ญ๐ญ๐ญ", while the other said, "Bruh she still shoots EXACTLY like this๐ญ".
Clark's teammate and current Las Vegas Aces player Kate Martin added, "Shooters gonna shoot". Another former Iowa player Gabbie Marshall said, "Sheโs a dawg ๐ฅ".
It didn't take Jansen long to drop her own comment which addressed Clark's sentiment specifically.
"To all the โBruhsโ commenting โฆnamely @caitlinclark22 โฆthis shootah had game for days!๐๐คฉ (vertical may be questionable, but I did jump over a chair and a fan!๐๐คท๐ผโโ๏ธ)," Jensen wrote in the comments.
iโm crying coach jan wants all the smoke pic.twitter.com/wqFnXur37g
โ cc akgae (@clrkszn) November 18, 2024
Clearly all of these comments were meant in jest, as Clark's attendance (and passion shown) at Iowa's game against Drake on Sunday shows that she's still supporting her alma mater.
At some point this season, Iowa will be announcing the game when they hold a jersey retirement ceremony for Clark's No. 22. But there hasn't been any indication of when that will be taking place quite yet.
Grant Young covers Womenโs Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustratedโs โOn SIโ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelorโs Degree in Marketing and played on USFโs Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.