Jan Jensen provides her vision for Iowa women's basketball as head coach

Jan Jensen was introduced as the next head coach of the Iowa women’s basketball program on Wednesday, taking over the job for the newly-retired Lisa Bluder after spending over two decades with the Hawkeyes.

Jensen has been right next to Bluder on the bench or her entire tenure in Iowa City — so she knows what success looks like. Given her familiarity with the program, similar success is expected from Jensen despite never holding a head coaching job across four decades in the industry.

Now that she has the keys to the kingdom, it’s up to her to carve out her own legacy as a coach apart from Bluder. What that looks like remains to be seen.

“I haven’t had time to sit down and look at your short-term goals and your long-term goals, which I will, and I don’t always share those publicly, just like sometimes we don’t always share what the team does because you can put it out there and when you come up short you get hammered,” Jensen said at her introductory press conference. “Sometimes that is within house. But I think when you’re chasing greatness, you want to be a champion.

“I mean, I don’t think there’s been one season, I don’t care how much we’ve rebuilt, where we’ve gone in there and said, let’s just try to finish fifth this year. I’m not wired like that.”

Jensen wants to be the champion of the Big Ten Conference on a yearly basis. And she wouldn’t have taken the job if she didn’t believe in her abilities as a coach. She didn’t want to start the so-called coach speak this early into her tenure — but she thinks Iowa has some big-time players expected to be on the roster next season.

Of course, Caitlin Clark isn’t there to score 30-plus points on a night basis for Jensen. She understands this could be a long game, and whether or not a drop off in the Hawkeyes’ on-court success occurs remains to be seen. Still, Jensen wouldn’t have been chosen to be Bluder’s successor if the Iowa brass didn’t believe in her abilities.

“I want to chase greatness,” she continued. “My expectations of the players are going to — they’ve been to back-to-back-to-back conference tournament championships. They’ve been to back-to-back national championship games. I’d like to think they’re coming in with a mentality, little chip on their shoulder, because most everybody else is going to say, hey, you lost all that.

“I’d say I’m not shying away to be great.”