Lisa Bluder Retires as Iowa WCBB HC; Reached 2024 NCAA Title Game with Caitlin Clark

Caitlin Clark isn't the only legend departing the Iowa women's basketball program this year.

Head coach Lisa Bluder announced her retirement on Monday, and the team called her a "basketball icon, legendary leader and all-time great" while revealing the news:

Iowa announced Jan Jensen will be the next head coach. Jensen was the associate head coach under Bluder for the past 20 seasons.

As for Bluder, she wrote a letter to "Hawkeye Nation" on Monday announcing her retirement.

"There is never an ideal time to retire and I am sure this fall that I will miss the games, the practices, the road trips, the atmosphere, the tremendous fans and, most importantly, the players," she wrote. "But my belief in the foundation of this program, knowing that success is now an unrelenting component of women's basketball at the University of Iowa gives me comfort as I transition to become the program's biggest champion."

She also explained she spent time discussing her future with her husband, David, and the student-athletes after this past season's run to the national championship and decided that it was time to move on from her coaching role.

But she will still be around Iowa and ended her letter by saying, "It is my hope that now with more time and energy, I can be an asset to our basketball program and this athletics department in any way that I am able."

Clark reacted to the news:

Bluder first became a head coach for Drake for 10 seasons from 1990 to 2000. She was a three-time Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year during that span and led the Bulldogs to three regular-season conference crowns, four conference tournament titles and four NCAA tournament appearances.

She then moved to Iowa at the start of the 2000-01 campaign and helped build the program over the course of 24 seasons.

The Hawkeyes won the Big Ten tournament in her first season, which clinched their first of 18 NCAA tournaments they qualified for during Bluder's tenure. They struggled to break through in March Madness during the coach's early years but eventually reached their first Sweet 16 under her guidance in 2015.

Iowa also became one of the best programs in the country in recent years, taking home the Big Ten regular-season title in 2021-22 and winning the conference tournament in each of the last three seasons.

The Hawkeyes also went to the Elite Eight in 2019, Sweet 16 in 2021 and national championship game in each of the last two seasons.

While much of the recent credit has gone to Clark for her record-setting performances on the court, Bluder was the coach on the sidelines who helped the guard reach unprecedented heights and guide the Iowa program to the Final Four for the first time since 1993.

Clark was the No. 1 overall pick of the 2024 WNBA draft, meaning the Hawkeyes could be in something of a transition period after the departure of two legends.

But she and Bluder guided them to levels the program had never previously reached.