The Hawkeyes WBB needed a tall forward, or center out of the transfer portal to replace graduating senior center Monica Czinano, and graduating senior forward McKenna Warnock. I would have thought a number of women would have wanted to walk in here and take passes from Caitlin Clark, and Iowa had one scholarship. A 6'7" center from Stanford who was the #1 rated recruit a year ago entered the transfer portal, and who played with Clark on a 19U team a few years ago. But she enrolled at UCLA.
Iowa succeeded at recruiting no transfer portal players. They gave up one athletic scholarship to Ava Jones who was in a horrible pedestrian accident in which her dad was killed, and she was severely injured. There is very little chance she can play basketball. Iowa kept its scholarship commitment to her, which I agree with. There should be some allowance in the NCAA to do this without losing a scholarship athlete. Iowa had one scholarship to give for the transfer portal, and still does, but the top athletes have already committed, so they will be two scholarships down.
