Notes and quotes from Big Ten Media Day

Turning the page on the Caitlin Clark era, welcoming in JuJu Watkins, NIL, the transfer portal and the new-look conference were among the many topics of conversation among players and coaches.

Here are five quick notes from a busy Big Ten Media Day:

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Iowa’s Jan Jensen wants to write the next chapter

Iowa’s new head coach has a lot on her plate entering 2024-25. Not only does she have to turn the page on Clark’s historic career, but she also has to carry the torch following Lisa Bluder’s retirement at the end of last season. 

For Jensen, someone who’s spent her whole life in Iowa, it’s not a responsibility she’s taking lightly. She shared how she’s navigated keeping it all in perspective.

“I just sat in silence for a while and just thought about the journey. It was a moment. A lot goes into that moment,” she told reporters of when she was hired as the program’s head coach. “I love the state of Iowa so much. I grew up in the state. Played at Drake. Love basketball. My grandma’s a hall of famer. … I coached with my best friends for 32 years. Lisa Bluder coached me. So if you do coaching right, you like to think that you get to impact a lot of people, and Lisa impacted me greatly.”

Former Pac-12 members still getting acquainted with new surroundings

Wednesday was the inaugural Big Ten Media Day for USC’s Lindsay Gottlieb, UCLA’s Cori Close, Washington’s Tina Langley and Oregon’s Kelly Graves.

Graves wasted little time before cracking jokes. The attire, he noted during a panel, was a bit more formal than he’s used to. 

“The biggest difference is the fact that we have to dress up,” he said of his new conference. “I have one suit, and I use it for weddings, funerals and now Big Ten Media Day. I’ve been casual for a long time. At Oregon, we were kind of the first ones to set the trend of just matching polos and shoes and things like that at games, so it’s a little uncomfortable.”

On a more serious note, the four newest Big Ten coaches all expressed excitement about the opportunities that lie ahead.

“The national brand has impacted us greatly,” Gottlieb said. “The number one thing is the exposure and the way that it’s impacted us and made us a little bit more national.”

Adding the talent of Watkins, the USC sophomore, will surely help in this regard as well. After setting a new record for points scored by a freshman last year, Watkins looks to further entrench herself as a national icon playing teams across the country.

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Teri Moren talks building a new offense

The Hoosiers face the challenge of replacing a generational talent in Mackenzie Holmes. But instead of trying to figure out how to replace her presence on the floor, Moren told The Next that she spent the summer scouring film of other teams, looking for ways to continually evolve Indiana’s offense.

“You can never stay the same. You’re either getting better or you’re getting worse. You can’t stay the same,” Moren said. “My goal for us was, how can we be less predictable? How can we be harder to guard? Maybe some of this is USA Basketball, that experience that I’ve had the last three summers going out and watching international teams play. The movement, the spacing, the passing, all of it. I’ve really been drawn to that, trying to figure out, ‘OK, how can we take some of those concepts and use them in our team?’”

Moren and her staff have watched everything from UConn and Stanford, to the Minnesota Lynx and Air Force, to the University of Maine, a team that’s five-out offense gave the Hoosiers some trouble last November.

“We’ve also taken just different concepts in the studying that we’ve done and tried to implement them,” she said. “What our kids like about it is, I tell them every day, ‘There’s no wrong answer to this. You just become ballplayers.’ They kind of like that. They like the freedom. … We’ll see. I’m excited about it, and I think they’re excited about it, and that’s what you want. You want your kids to be excited.”

Experience and leadership in Champaign

Illinois head coach Shauna Green’s noticed a new level of focus to her Illini so far. After last year’s disappointing regular season that saw the team finish 8-10 in conference play, only for them to rally and win the WBIT Championship over Villanova, Green’s combination of five fifth-years and seniors doesn’t want to leave anything on the table in 2024-25.

“I noticed a difference even this summer. I just thought our seniors were ultra-focused,” Green told The Next. “They were completely locked in, ‘This is what we learned, this is why we came back for our fifth year and this is why we remained at Illinois; this is what we want to accomplish. They were completely focused in for the eight weeks this summer, and we had one of the best summers we’ve had in my career in a long time.”

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Kim Barnes Arico on grappling with the portal and NIL

It was a challenging offseason for the Michigan head coach. Laila Phelia, her leading scorer, transferred to Texas after her junior season, while Cameron Williams, her leading rebounder, transferred to Miami (FL) after her senior season. Barnes Arico also saw four others leave via the portal, while graduating two players as well. For a program that’s generally been a model of stability in the 12 years Barnes Arico’s led the way, this offseason was jarring.

“The transfer portal is real. And NIL is real,” Barnes Arico told The Next. “You just gotta make sure that you have opportunities in place for your student-athletes to continue to grow their brand and sponsorship opportunities in place, collective opportunities in place as well as just adjusting to life in the transfer portal, being prepared to recruit out of the portal.

“I think it was an interesting time for Michigan women’s basketball, but I think it really was eye opening and will help with our growth,” she added. “I think our freshmen class really united during that time, and they felt like it was going to provide them a lot more immediate opportunities, so they were really excited about it. It’s just a different landscape, and we gotta evolve and adjust to it.”