In her 40th year as head coach, Lisa Bluder hopes to win the NCAA championship for Iowa.

ALBANY, New York — Most people undoubtedly know Lisa Bluder as the coach of Caitlin Clark.
Although the 6-foot-7 superstar on the court has received most of the credit for Iowa’s success over the last two years, Clark and the other Hawkeyes players give credit to the 62-year-old coach off the court.

Since 1983–1984, Bluder has served as head coach at the University of Iowa, spending the final 24 years of his tenure in the state of Iowa. She has guided the Hawkeyes to eight consecutive seasons with 20 wins, amassing 882 victories.

On Sunday, Clark declared, “Coach Bluder is a Hall of Fame coach.” The main quality about her that I found most appealing during the recruitment process is that she is a player’s coach. You won’t have to employ a predetermined offensive scheme against her. She will adjust everything to fit the members of her team and what would position them for maximum success.

Although Bluder won the 2019 Naismith National Coach of the Year award, the majority of her accomplishments have gone unnoticed.

Jensen echoed Clark’s observation that Bluder can adjust to any approach that best suits the abilities of the squad she is currently coaching by saying, “But she’s also a great Xs and Os coach.” According to Jensen, she has recently experimented with a variety of read-and-react schemes, including triangle, basic motion, and the current one that aims to put Clark in the greatest possible position with the ball.

Bluder has gained the respect of her peers, especially Kim Mulkey, the coach of LSU, who will be her opponent on Monday.

“We talk about growing the game? Look at their fan base,” Mulkey said. “I just have much respect for what she does with her players. I think the sign of a great coach is you adapt and you adjust to the personnel. And while each coach has a different style, if you don’t adjust and adapt to each team you have, you become stagnant. I think that the team she has and the things that they do to be successful tells you that she understands and knows the game.”

But while Bluder is hoping to guide her team to its first national championship this year, after leading the Hawkeyes to the title game a year ago, she said her biggest hope is that she has been able to coach her players to be successful in life.

And that comes, she said, with a philosophy she won’t change based on personnel — one centered on faith and teaching honesty and integrity.

“I think that’s kind of where it lands,” she said. “Be kind to others, man.”

Her players say they’ve been listening.

“She really instills great values in us, and she believes that every single person on our team matters,” said Kate Martin, who has spent six years under Bluder at Iowa. “It doesn’t matter if you’re Caitlin, who plays 40 minutes a game, or if you’re somebody who doesn’t really get off the bench. Every single person on our team matters.”