Top 5 women's basketball players returning to Iowa for the 2024-25 season ft. Hannah Stuelke and more
Caitlin Clark's era in Iowa City is over, and the Lady Hawkeyes are now looking toward the immediate future. With a generational talent now in the WNBA, they`re understandably planning to retool their roster for next season, including looking at the best recruiting class they can get their hands on and promoting former backups to becoming main players.
Iowa`s high school recruiting is clearly not the focus of this post, as that`s a completely different article altogether. That said, here are the five best returning Iowa women`s basketball players for the upcoming season, and it feature a couple of familiar names.
Top 5 women's basketball players returning to Iowa
1) Hannah Stuelke
If someone is to take over Caitlin Clark`s scoring mantle, it will be Hannah Stuelke. The 6-foot-2 sophomore was the second-best scorer for Iowa women`s basketball this past season at a still-modest 14 points per game. But with Clark now gone, she`ll get far more touches.
Stuelke's scoring ability was evident in Iowa's Final Four victory over UConn, where Nika Muhl pursued Caitlin Clark throughout the game. In the 71-69 victory, Stuelke scored a game-high 23 points while shooting 75 percent from the field.
One might say that Hannah Stuelke benefits a ton from having an elite passer feed her the ball and that she couldn`t create for herself. But that`s how basketball is played.
If she does need to create her own shot, she can, but head coach Lisa Bluder`s offensive schemes focus on crisp ball movement to take advantage of Stuelke`s excellent finishing skills around the basket.
2) Sydney Affolter
With Stuelke potentially taking most of the scoring load, Sydney Affolter should be the next one up. She`s gone up from just getting garbage time minutes to one of the better players on Iowa women`s basketball, and she`s also due to get more touches as one of the emerging leaders for the team.
Affolter is more of an all-around player who can do the nitty-gritty work to help her team win outside of just scoring the ball.
She averaged 8.4 points, 6.4 rebounds and 2.3 assists this season, proving that she`s going to be Iowa women`s basketball`s version of a Swiss Army knife.
3) Sharon Goodman
6-foot-3 junior center Sharon Goodman should be at least a starter candidate for Iowa women`s basketball this upcoming season. Her size and length should be able to bolster the Lady Hawkeyes` frontcourt alongside Affolter, giving them good paint protection and another efficient scorer close to the basket.
4) Taylor McCabe
A 5-foot-9 sophomore out of Fremont, Nebraska, McCabe should be Iowa`s next long-range sniper that could stretch defenses at will. Appearing in 33 total games, she averaged 46.1% from three, with almost all of her shots coming from deep.
She`s not exactly the kind of three-point shot creator that Caitlin Clark was, but she`s an excellent point guard away from torching defenses from downtown in the upcoming season.
5) AJ Ediger
Ediger is a 6-foot-2 junior who could be plugged in well in Iowa women`s basketball`s frontcourt. With more minutes on the way, she can be a vital cog for the Lady Hawkeyes down low alongside Stuelke, Affolter and Goodman.
AJ Ediger averaged 1.8 points, 1.2 rebounds and 0.2 assists per game this season. Moreover, she shot 60.7% from the field. Her production will only bump, given she'll get more scoring opportunities in the absence of Caitlin Clark.