Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Jan Jensen makes her first hires for women's hoops, EA Sports' Hawkeye Football rankings & Caitlin's aggressiveness

Starting point is 00:00:00 Jan Jensen has made their first coaching hires as the new head coach for Iowa Women's Basketball, plus EA Sports has left their impression of what the Hawkeyes are going to be in 2025. We talk about all that more today. Locked on, Hawkeyes. You are locked on, Hawkeyes. Your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey, welcome in. I'm Trent Condon, and this is the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:37 Thanks for making Locked On Hawkeyes your first listen every day. We're available wherever you find podcasts, and you can also find us on YouTube. While you're there, make sure you hit the subscribe button. Helps us get in front of more Hawkeye fans. If you're listening on the audio side of things, five-star reviews. Appreciate all of you for that. Today's episode is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKDOWNCOLLEGE for $20 off your

Starting point is 00:01:03 first purchase. That's LOCKDOWNCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. That's LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Well, a new hire has come down for the University of Iowa and the women's basketball program, Jam Jensen, after being announced as the new head coach, oh, I had a little over a month ago, and the surprising news to many,

Starting point is 00:01:21 that Lisa Bluter decided to walk away. Well, Jam Jensen moving up from assistant coach meant that there was an opening in the coaching staff and went to the place that I think most everybody thought was the one that made the most sense. And that was going out and bringing in Randy Henderson. Now, Randy Henderson, you might remember her as a player, as Randy Peterson. She was part of the changeover regime from Angie League after her firing and into the Lisa Bluta era. And a player that was an all Big Ten player, certainly a big time athlete, but she has continued on her coaching career and done some really, really good things. She has

Starting point is 00:01:57 bounced around, done it at a myriad of different levels. One of the biggest things though that I enjoy about Henderson is that she is also somebody that has a head coaching role. And this isn't to say that I think that Jan Jensen's in over her head as a head coach for the first time and doing it at the University of Iowa. But there are certain things. We also know that Jan's going to be able to rely on Lisa Bluter. Coach Bluter's not leaving the program completely.

Starting point is 00:02:24 You know, this is not a walk away. All of a sudden, she's not leaving the program completely. This is not a walk away. All of a sudden, she's not going to move over to Spain. She's going to be gone during the winter months. She's going to be around the program a ton. We know that they've used something similar to this in the past with what Coach Fitz was in the role that they carved out for her. She kind of wanted to retire, but they kept her around and find some things, and she ended up being busy. I have a feeling that Coach Bluter is also going to be busy. But bringing somebody with Coach Henderson's acumen as a head coach will help. A new voice to lean on, that's a good thing.

Starting point is 00:02:56 Some new ideas, I think that's a huge positive to go along with it, is bringing in somebody that has also been involved in a bunch of different places, done it at the D1 level, at the mid-major level, moved up to the Big East level, and it's kind of jumped around and saw different levels that she's been able to do, also doing it at the lower levels where you don't have the same kind of things. Randy Henderson has been all over the place as both an assistant and a head coach, and I think those are things to be excited about. 21 years of college experience, 17 years as a head coach, two years as a D1 assistant coach,

Starting point is 00:03:32 after playing collegially at Iowa from 97 to 2001. These are great things. But you couple that with the other part of the hire, as this one I think is more intriguing. This is one that personally I'm excited to get more information about what this is going to look like and that is bringing on Sean Sullivan as an assistant coach slash GM and you might be saying to yourself, whoa, whoa, whoa, this isn't anything that I was ever done before. This is college athletics. We don't have general managers. This isn't the pros. Not so fast, my friend. This is a huge, huge changing part of college athletics right now. Now, different programs at different sports label it, title it different ways. It's basically roster construction. And as we know, in this environment, with the transfer portal being wide open, no parameters, as you know them, you can transfer and transfer again

Starting point is 00:04:28 and still be eligible the following season as we saw on football, obviously, with what happened with Caden Proctor. So you have that part of it. That is a part that you have this constant roster fluctuation. You also look at team building and what you're doing with your NIL collective and the way that you're doing that. I've had people tell me that are involved in NIL space that Iowa women's basketball is not the top of the country, but they're doing very well. And they have enough money to seriously be a big time player in the transfer pool market going forward. However,

Starting point is 00:05:03 has to be the right fit. Another thing that I know the coaching staff and the university as a whole wants to be very careful about is it's not going to be completely everybody gets the same thing. That's not realistic. That's not the way things are done. However, you don't want to have things out of whack. And you bring in a new hotshot, and it doesn't matter the sport, but you bring in a new hotshot transfer it doesn't matter the sport, but you bring in a new hotshot transfer

Starting point is 00:05:25 that hasn't put in the sweat equity into your program, into your team, into your organization, and they're getting four, five, six, 10 times the amount of money. You can understand how that could lead to a lot of clubhouse problems, right? That locker room dynamic that is so important in any level of athletics and certainly in the college game. You understand if you do something like that in Iowa, I know it's been something that even with the influx there, they've been something that they've been at least understanding and understand the way that they build their roster. John Sullivan, though, this is an interesting one. He was an assistant at Iowa grad or back during his undergrad years and recently has been

Starting point is 00:06:08 at North Carolina as a member of their coaching staff there. He's also done some other things, video coordinator for Team USA and USA Basketball. When he started his career outside of Iowa, he went out to Penn State. He was the director of scouting and digital technology. Sounds like a guy that wears a lot of hats, can do a lot of different things, and not just on the floor, but also off of it. And when you hear that GM type of conversation and building a team and knowing that I was going to be going through a big change,

Starting point is 00:06:38 I think that's a big component about what they're going to be going forward. We roll on here, Lockdown Hawkeyes, and we got some football talk for you today. EA Sports, they have come out with their rankings of Iowa football. What do the Hawkeyes look like? What does EA Sports have to say? We'll talk about that as we come back. This is Lockdown Hawkeyes. Game time is an authorized ticket marketplace of Major League Baseball,

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Starting point is 00:08:06 lowest price guarantee. All you have to do right now is take the guesswork out of buying MLB tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOllege for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code LOCKDOWNCOLLEGE, L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N-C-O-L-L-E-G-E for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Trent Conant back with you once again on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Thanks for making Lockdown Hawkeyes your first listen every day. Well, let's talk some football and not on the field variety. Well, kind of on the field variety. All right, we're talking about a video game.

Starting point is 00:08:55 And I know for many of you out there, I'm sure this just makes you roll the eyes back to the back of your head because you've never played a game before. And I get that part. And if you haven't played the game, you're certainly not excited about it. You're not excited like I am. Now we have to upgrade the system and figure all that out. But getting excited to see this game for the first time in over a decade.

Starting point is 00:09:15 And if you've been a player of the college football franchises, as I have for a long time, you're excited about that. But even if you're not, this is what it is. And this is just like another ranking, right? And we see on three come out with their rankings and we see Athlon come out with their list. And here comes Phil Steele with their list. Just think of this as another list.

Starting point is 00:09:36 And this is where they place Iowa in terms of their rankings. The first one is what they are offensively. And as you can imagine... Sorry about that. Back with you. Yeah, so as we were talking about, EA Sports, college football rankings. Yeah, the offensive numbers. Well, I was not in the top 25 offensively, nor should they be, right? I mean, there's no doubt that Iowa should not be considered a top 25 team offensively.

Starting point is 00:10:21 Top 50, top 75, top 100. Okay, maybe top 100. Maybe that's a place that we can get to and make a whole lot of sense. We're not going to freak out about the Iowa offense and the way that the college football game looks at them. However, defensively, this was the eye-opener. To have Iowa, even with nine returning starters coming back this season, if you don't think that this is going to be the best team in college football defensively this year, okay. You can come up with arguments.

Starting point is 00:10:52 Georgia, Alabama, Clemson I think is going to be really good defensively this season. Ohio State, sure, they got dudes over there. Okay, so Iowa's not the best defense in the country. Top five, I think they should be in there. Okay, so Iowa's not the best defense in the country. Top five, I think they should be in there, but okay, this is lockdown. Hawkeyes probably distorts our view just a little bit. Top 10, absolutely. If you don't have this Iowa defense considered in the top 10 of college football this year preseason, is it going to play out that way? We don't know. But with what they returned from last season, from the numbers that they put up, with what they do year after year after year, to not think of this as going to be a top 10 defensive season,

Starting point is 00:11:36 I don't know. And yet Iowa checks in at number 13 in the rankings from EA Sports. This is what they got, their top 10 defenses in college football. Number one, Ohio State. Two, Georgia. Three, Oregon. Four, Alabama. Five, Clemson. Six, Notre Dame.

Starting point is 00:11:55 Seven, Michigan. Eight, Texas. Nine, Penn State. Ten, Utah. There's Florida State at 11, Oklahoma. Oklahoma at 12 12 and then Iowa checks in at number 13 they couldn't be more wrong

Starting point is 00:12:10 the defense is going to be outstanding again, they're going to put together a huge, huge season and with an offense that pulls at least a little bit of weight this year I think we're in for an incredibly exciting season of Hawkeye football.

Starting point is 00:12:26 And the offense with the defense is going to be fun. If you're a gamer, let me know. I've never played online. Maybe that's probably not a good thing. I'll probably get walloped by all of you out there since I haven't really touched a controller for a football game in a long, long time. But we're getting there. What is it?

Starting point is 00:12:42 July? Middle of July? A couple weeks away? We'll figure it out. We got you covered on that front. A little more basketball for you when we come back. Locked on Hawkeyes and Kaitlyn Clark. The ups and downs continue for her as she makes her way for the first time through the WNBA. We're talking some Hawkeye women's hoops and basketball as a whole. Some recruiting news on the men's side of things as well.

Starting point is 00:13:03 This is the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Trey, kind of back with you one final time, wrapping up after watching a late night last night, a little Kaitlyn Clark and her matchup against the Seattle Storm. Now Seattle came in playing some good basketball after a slow start themselves. And we saw that game earlier this season out in Seattle. Both the teams were really struggling at that time. But since then, they've really put it on.

Starting point is 00:13:34 They're playing at a high level. And they've gone out there. They've won four of their last six. Some big wins on there. A couple road victories. They beat Connecticut. And then the win. So Seattle's playing well.

Starting point is 00:13:43 But you see Kaitlyn Clark gets off to a pretty good start, still filling up the stat sheet. Well, she has 15.6 rebounds, seven assists. She does have six turnovers again, four or nine from the floor, three or seven from three. And this is what I get into. And my continued watching this league for the first time, watching this team go through and watching Kaitlyn Clark. I've been watching Kaitlyn Clark play basketball now for eight years. Four years in high school, calling her games in high school, four years obviously collegially at Iowa, and now a half season in to the WNBA.

Starting point is 00:14:27 And the way that she's used, the way that the system is set up, I don't want to sound like a bitter Hawkeye fan because that's not what this is intended to be. But I'm just trying to figure out what are they trying to do, right? What is this team? What is your identity? And when you're talking about a team now, this deep into the season, basically halfway through the season, and you still don't know what your identity is, that's the monster problem. They're six right now in points per game.

Starting point is 00:14:55 Pretty good. Yet they play in the eighth in terms of pace. Shoot the ball pretty well. Fourth in field goal rate. Six in three-pointers made. Tied for second in three-point percentage. Offensive rebound, six. Rebounds overall, 11th.

Starting point is 00:15:12 They had a great rebounding team. No steals. Turn it over a little too much. Not ridiculous, but the defense are rating. The defense has been bad. Coupled with rebounding that is below average, but an offense that feels like it can still be so much better. And we see moments of that. I would just like to see Kaitlyn Clark be more aggressive.

Starting point is 00:15:33 And there were times early in her career at Iowa where it was the opposite, right? It was about her realizing that, yes, her teammates can help her out, that this wasn't high school, that there were other players there. And in a way, it almost feels like Kaitlyn Clark's gone the other direction now, knowing that she is playing at the pantheon of this sport, that this is the highest level. There's nothing higher than what she is playing at right now. And with it, anticipating that your teammates are going to be able to play at that level. And when you put all those things together, you're left saying, all right, they're going to have it for me every single time.

Starting point is 00:16:09 They're going to catch those tough passes. They're going to knock down those open threes. They're going to run in transition, catch it, go up in stride. And it just hasn't been there. Caitlin Clark needs to be a little more aggressive, a little more selfish. And that's something that was in a way kind of broken out of her in her days in Iowa City. But we need to go back to that. And if Indiana is going to get into the playoffs, and there's still an opportunity, even with the 7-12 record, there's still a chance that they can be a playoff team because all the top eight teams get in. And the teams ahead of them right now, well, there are only one, two, three, four, five, six teams over 500.

Starting point is 00:16:48 Then you have the seventh place team. That is Atlanta, who's six and nine. Chicago Sky, just ahead of them at six and 10. We're talking percentage points is the difference here. They still can get in. And I think this team still can get much better. We've seen improvement out of them. Kaitlin Clark, keep shouting along.

Starting point is 00:17:06 And I'll tell you this weekend, coming up on Sunday, this is going to be an incredibly intriguing matchup. It is the old guard. It is maybe a bitter old player in Diana Trazzi. I've always been a longtime Diana Trazzi fan of her game, of the way that she played the game, and the ability that she has to play it at a high level, even today at 42 years old. But what we've seen from her recently, over the last few months,

Starting point is 00:17:37 has not been the Diana Trozzi that I thought she was. She's somebody that has battled for years to try to grow this sport. She has worked in conjunction with a number of women athletes. And now to have this ability as a veteran, as somebody that is holding on at the end and seeing it happen right in front of your face and yet not be willing to understand that Kaitlyn Clark is different. She is the face of your league and things need to be done differently if you're going to be willing to understand that Caitlin Clark is different. She is the face of your league. And things need to be done differently if you're going to be able to put things at the highest level

Starting point is 00:18:10 and build your sport into something that is at minimum financially solvent because it's still not that at this point in time. Traci hasn't helped. I know she's going to be ready. She'll be physically out there and she'll be playing her physical game. She'll have some tricks up her sleeve. I'd like to see selfish Caitlin in this one. Go off a little bit.

Starting point is 00:18:32 Jaw out the old one. Have a little something to say. Pick up another victory. That's it for Lockdown Hawkeyes. As always, thanks for making Lockdown Iowa your first listen every day. We got you covered on the Hawkeye front, but that's not all. It doesn't matter if your favorite team is the Chicago Bears, the Cleveland Browns, if you're a Chiefs fan in the NFL,

Starting point is 00:18:52 all 32 teams, your favorite Major League Baseball team, NBA with the draft going on, NHL, we have you covered, your team every day here on the Lockdown Network. And not only that, we also have you filled in with our national shows, Locked On NFL, Locked On NBA, Locked On Draft. Oh, yes, everything happening at a high level with Locked On. Fantasy football, you're getting ready for that. Even betting, we have you covered on Locked On.

Starting point is 00:19:19 Thanks for making Locked On, Hawkeyes, your first listen every day. We'll talk to you again on tomorrow's episode. Thanks for joining us, and go Hawks. Lockdown Hawkeyes, your first listen every day. We'll talk to you again on tomorrow's episode. Thanks for joining us and go Hawks.

Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Jan Jensen makes her first hires for women's hoops, EA Sports' Hawkeye Football rankings & Caitlin's aggressiveness

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