Iowa Women's Basketball: Backcourt Preview

We kick off Iowa women’s basketball preview week with a look at the strength of the Hawkeyes coming into the season. The backcourt. Head coach Lisa Bluder returns three starters from a team that went 31-7 and made a run to the national title game last season. The experience, production and leadership from those three players is why the Hawkeyes are still ranked #3 in the preseason AP Poll, despite a couple of questions heading into the season.

Caitlin Clark (100), Kate Martin (100) and Gabbie Marshall (99) have combined for 299 starts over the course of their careers, while the trio has combined for 4,367 points, 1,225 rebounds and 1,400 assists. Sure, a good portion of that comes from Caitlin, but the consistency from that group is unmatched. The depth off the bench is a plus as well. Molly Davis is back for her second year with the team and her fifth year overall, while Kylie Feuerbach returns after missing last season with a torn ACL. Taylor McCabe is entering her sophomore year and true freshman Kennise Johnson is added to the group out of the Chicago Area. So with that, let’s dive into the group and take a deeper look at the Hawkeyes backcourt.

Backcourt Breakdown

Where do you even start with Caitlin Clark? National Player of the Year, Collegiate Women Athlete of the Year, Sullivan Award winner. She also put together one of the most impressive individual NCAA Tournament runs to help lead the Hawkeyes to the Final Four. There isn’t much you can say about Caitlin that people don’t already know. Last season she averaged 27.8 points, 7.1 rebounds and 8.6 assists, while playing 34.4 minutes per game. During the NCAA Tournament she averaged 31.8 points and 10.0 assists per game. Still, she’s looking to get even better.

“She’s never satisfied, but that’s the beauty of basketball. You never play a perfect game. There’s always things that you can work on. I think she understands that,” said Lisa Bluder. “She’s constantly working to get better. It’s not like she’s sitting back and enjoying this time of her being the National Player of the Year. She wants to get it again.”

As a scorer, there isn’t much she can’t do. She can drive to the hoop and draw fouls, but also knows how to use the glass to convert short looks in and around the paint. From the perimeter, she made a Divison I leading 140 three-pointers and has the ability to hit from distances that aren’t common in the women’s game. At the free throw line, she has converted 590 of her 688 (85.8%) shots over three seasons. Caitlin ranked 5th in the Big Ten in three-point percentage and shot an impressive 55.8% from inside the arc.

“I want to get better at shooting off of screens and being more comfortable getting my feet set and getting shots off,” said Clark.

As for the rest of her game, even though Caitlin has led the country in assists back-to-back seasons, she says she is still looking to cut down on turnovers. Defense is another aspect of her game that she is trying to get better at.

“I think the biggest thing, turnover-wise, I can still cut down on those numbers. That’s something at the professional level, like I can’t average three turnovers a game. That’s just not a realistic thought.”

Despite defenses throwing every look possible at Caitlin, she has been able to improve her assist-to-turnover ratio each year from 1.49 as a freshman, to 1.69 as a sophomore, to 2.07 last season.

“Then just in practices working hard defensively. I still think that’s something I can get better at and something I try to work really hard at when we’re working on them in practice, whether it’s one-on-one, whether it’s close-outs, whether it’s 5-on-5. I think it’s something that I can continue to develop.”

There is no doubt that Caitlin is the best player in the country and her on-court abilities will lead the way for the Iowa offense that led the nation in scoring last season.

Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall, the other two starting guards, decided to return for their sixth and fifth years respectively. Starting with Kate Martin, the term that is commonly floated around is that she is the “glue” of the team. You really can’t overstate her importance to the team, as a player and a leader.

“Kate is honestly one of the strongest leaders I’ve ever been around. She’s a culture builder,” said Bluder. “She’s playing like a pro right now. She really is. She’s knocking down 3s. She’s physically defending hard, rebounding. I think you’re going to see Kate just jump off the stat sheet this year.”

On the court, Kate has been a model of consistency. Over the last three seasons, she is averaging 7.3 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game. Last year, she scored in double figures 11 times, pulled down 6+ rebounds 12 times and dished 5+ assists in 11 games. Talk about doing a little bit of everything. Martin understands there could be more scoring opportunities for her, while the Hawkeyes break in a new lineup.

“I’m in my sixth year, I’ve built up some confidence, some trust with my teammates and my coaches, if I have the opportunity to go score the ball, I’m going to,” said Martin. “I think I’ve become a more patient person in the paint, making good decisions. I always try to make the right plays, but I had a pretty good shooting season last year, so I’m trying to build off of that, but mainly in the paint (is where I’ve improved) and just trying to get downhill, driving a little more.”

Kate put up career-high averages for points (7.7) and assists (3.7) last season. If she makes any type of jump, like Lisa Bluder alluded to, it will be a huge boost for the Hawkeyes offense.

Rounding out the starting lineup is Gabbie Marshall. She opted to return for her fifth year and while she averaged just 6.2 points per game last season, she is one of the most underrated players on the roster.

“Gabbie has been voted a team captain this year. She’s considered one of our best defensive players and she’s a knock-down 3-point shooter,” said Lisa Bluder.

After a tough first half of the season shooting from behind the three-point line, Marshall picked it up late in the year and showed why she is such a valuable member of the team. Not only did she lead the team with 62 steals on the year, she made 37 of 70 (52.9%) three-pointers over the last 14 games, including six games with 3+ made threes.

“I was wanting people to kind of feel bad for me in a way in the beginning and then I switched my mindset. I was like, alright, this is not anyone’s fault, but my own and I’m the only one that can get out of this slump. Then I truly started getting in the gym more and that’s really how I got myself out of it.”

If Gabbie can put together a consistent shooting season, averaging right around the 9.5 points per game that she did over the last two months of the season last year and pair that with her solid defense on the other end, she could have the best season of her career.

“I learned last year my defense never changed. My defensive effort never changed no matter if I was missing or hitting shots and that’s the biggest thing. I can bring different things to the team if my shot is off,” said Marshall.

Off the bench, the Hawkeyes are going to try to thwart the narrative that they can only score with their starting lineup. Last season, the starting five + Hannah Stuelke combined to score 86.4% of the teams points. While it’s not impossible, it is unfair to expect Hannah Stuelke and Addi O’Grady to combine for the 1,042 points (28.0 ppg) that Monika Czinano and McKenna Warnock put up last season. That means the Hawkeyes will have rely on a more spread out attack, including points from players off the bench.

Fifth-year senior Molly Davis could be at least part of the answer to who will step up in the scoring department. In three years at Central Michigan, Davis averaged 17.7 points per game and scored over 1,400 points. In her first year with the Hawkeyes she averaged just 3.8 points and 2.7 shot attempts per game. Lisa Bluder said she seen a flip in Davis’ mindset over the offseason.

“Last year, she defered to the people who had been here for a little bit. She’s not defering anymore,” said Bluder. “She’s just playing at a different level and her confidence is there.”

In three games during the Europe trip, Davis scored 36 points and dished out 17 assists, while shooting 64% from the floor. In the Hawkeyes two exhibition games, she had 22 points, nine rebounds, five assists and shot 8/11 from the floor. Molly has settled in at Iowa and is starting to show off why she has the 11th most points all-time in the Central Michigan recordbook.

“Coach Tania Davis has been a huge help for me this offseason,” said Davis on media day. “Working on things that I need to improve on and getting game like shots up. I think she’s been a tremendous help and I think that we’ve seen that on the court so far.”

“Having that first year (in the Big Ten) under my belt, I know what to expect and know the system a little better…I think that (confidence) just comes with time, but my teammates have instilled that confidence in me. If I pass up a shot, Caitlin is the first one to tell me to shoot the ball.”

I’m going to leave Sydney Affolter for the next article, although she could be talked about as a guard, leaving Kylie Feuerbach and Taylor McCabe as the two others that will be pushing for valuable floor minutes. Their exact roles are still to be determined for different reasons.

Feuerbach transferred in from Iowa State for the 2021-22 season after spending her freshman year in Ames. In her first year with the Hawkeyes, Kylie averaged 3.4 points, 1.3 rebounds and was second off the bench, averaging 14.5 minutes per game. She missed all of last season after tearing her ACL, but is back to 100% this season. When she is at her best, she is a threat to drive to the hoop, as well as shoot it from behind the three-point line. On the defensive end, Kylie is quick and can force some turnovers.

Then, there is sophomore sharpshooter Taylor McCabe. The 2022 Nebraska Gatorade Player of the Year appeared in just 18 of 38 games last season, averaging just 3.4 minutes per game. She did shoot 41.7% from three-point range, but just six of her 54 shot attempts came from inside the arc. It will be interesting to see how Lisa Bluder utilizes her this season. A shooter as good as Taylor is hard to keep on the bench, but she may not get as many minutes if Bluder feels others have more well-rounded games.

True freshman Kennise Johnson is the only new addition to the group. Out of Example Academy in Frankfort, IL, Johnson was ranked as the #3 guard and #13 overall prospect in the state of Illinois by Prep Girls Hoops. She averaged 11.3 points, 5.9 rebounds and 6.2 assists and won the Prep School National Championship as a junior at Example. Johnson played just six total minutes in the Hawkeyes two exhibition games.

Final Thought

The Hawkeyes are set when it comes to guard play this season. Caitlin is going to be Caitlin, which will be an exciting show to watch all season, but the group possesses production, experience and leadership across the board. If Kate Martin can contribute a little more like Lisa Bluder said she has been and Gabbie Marshall can put together a consistent shooting year from behind the arc, you could see the trio beat their 2020-21, 42.7 point per game total. Off the bench, it seems as though they have options that will be bigger threats to score in years past starting with Molly Davis’ and her increased comfort as a second-year player in the Big Ten. The coaching staff has six guards that can play valuable minutes, which gives them a lot of depth and flexibility.

Up Next, we take at the Hawkeyes frontcourt led by Hannah Stuelke and Addi O’Grady. Can the newbies to the starting lineup fill the void left by McKenna Warnock and Monika Czinano?