How Randi Henderson returned to continue Iowa’s post tradition

In her first season as assistant coach at Iowa, Randi Henderson was handed the reins as the Hawkeyes’ post coach by new head coach Jan Jensen, who has molded good-to-great bigs from Megan Gustafson to Monika Czinano — and even Henderson herself.  

“I think that title [Post Whisperer] should be retired in the rafters next to Megan Gustafson and all the others,” Henderson told The Next. “I think if you look back at the post players that Jan’s coached, Bethany Doolittle is a much different post player than Megan, and I was much different than both of those, and she’s had success with all different types of post players.

“I believe that same thing, and I think finding what the post players are good at and really capitalizing on those things is what she’s done so well, and I hope to carry on that same mindset and ability,” Henderson added. “But the ‘Post Whisperer’ deserves to have her jersey retired.” 

Battle of the bigs

After playing Hannah Stuelke at center last season throughout the Hawkeyes’ second straight Final Four run, Jensen is glad the 6’2 junior can return to her natural power forward position with several strong centers on the roster. But Jensen has no regrets about having played Stuelke at center last season. 

“She’s going to be able to do the things that we’re going to need a really strong four player to be able to do, because I know she can do it at the five, up until you play a 6’7 [Kamilla Cardoso of South Carolina in the National Championship game],” Jansen told reporters after Iowa’s 110-55 win over Missouri Western in an exhibition game Oct. 30. “You know, everybody last year thought we were like, ‘Oh, well, she’s playing the five,’ but there was only going to be a couple people in the country we were going to have trouble with. And when we got to South Carolina, nobody could beat that. I’ll stick to that. She can play both, but I think it would behoove us if we can keep her at the four.” 

That seems likely as there is a burgeoning battle at center between 6’4 senior Addison O’Grady and 6’4 freshman Ava Heiden, a four-star recruit from Sherwood, Oregon. 

While O’Grady is more experienced, Heiden impressed the coaching staff during summer workouts and early season practices, earning her the start in the secret scrimmage against St Thomas. But she was sidelined with an illness right before the Missouri Western game, giving O’Grady a chance to shine in practice and start the exhibition contest. 

“She [O’Grady] had a super week of practice, and was able to capitalize when Ava was under the weather,” Jensen said after last Wednesday’s game. “Ava didn’t bat an eye and feel badly for herself, just battling.”

While O’Grady got the start, both her and Heiden played about the same minutes with similar stats. In 14:59, O’Grady had eight points and two rebounds, while Heiden had 10 points and four rebounds in 12:43.

“Addi has a little more experience; she knows what we want a little more,” Jensen said last week. “I really want it to be competitive and reward that and everybody stays hungry. It’s kind of neck and neck. I don’t know if we’ve seen a big separation, but we’re going to need them both.  And that’s where we have to go back to not glorifying the starters. I try to call them sometimes ‘the people who begin the game.’”

During a press conference Monday, Jensen indicated that O’Grady would start again against Northern Illinois this Wednesday in the Hawkeyes’ season opener in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. 

“It likely will be Addi, but they’re battling it out in a really great way,” Jensen said. “Our goal is to just keep them both confident and playing freer.”

“They both give us a really good look in a different way,” she added. “Addi’s got a little height. She’s really got pretty good timing and is an enforcer on defense. Ava’s really mobile. She can get down the floor and when she puts it all together, she can be a different type of matchup.”

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Staying the course

While basketball is increasingly becoming positionless, Iowa, for the most part, will continue to be a traditional back-to-the-basket post program, Henderson told The Next at media day in October. 

“There’s different strategies, but the post position is a unique position that has some things that stay the same, and Jan has really mastered those things,” she said. “I think you have to have a true post to be a true post school. And I think we have some ability to utilize the true five still, which does make you hard to guard and opens up the perimeter. And there’s a lot of benefits to that.”

Two of Iowa’s most dominant post players, Gustafson and Czinano, followed the Jan Jensen textbook to a tee — nimble footwork, getting in position down low early, taking few dribbles and even fewer 3-pointers. 

Both are in the top three on Iowa’s all-time scoring list and have only one made 3-pointer between them. Of Gustafson’s 2,804 points scored between 2015-2019, only three were from a 3-pointer made her senior year. The only other 3-pointer she attempted was when she was a sophomore. Czinano, who ended up with 2,413 points between 2018-2023, didn’t attempt a 3-pointer until her fifth year, going 0-for-1 in her career. 

Gustafson has since transformed her game to fit the WNBA style by consistently shooting 3-pointers. From going just 1-for-9 from beyond the arc during her rookie season in 2019 with the Dallas Wings, she made 22 of 57 3-point attempts in 2024 with the Las Vegas Aces. 

“The game evolves, and that’s what players want — they want to develop,” Henderson said. “Megan’s size made it so that she had to evolve to a little bit more of a face-up, which is crazy, because she’s 6’3 — which is smaller.

“There is no college program that can completely prepare you for the pros,” she added. “The truth of the matter is that you can’t skip the steps. You don’t get to become a pro your freshman year of college. You get to become a really good freshman, and then you become a really good sophomore, and then you keep adding things to your game so that what you’re doing is preparing yourself for the shift you have to take when you get to the pros. That’s what I think our job is. And if a player takes it one year at a time, she’ll be prepared for taking that next step when she becomes a pro and adding even more to her game while she’s feeling like a freshman in college again.”

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While Henderson admits Gustafson could have been used more in face-up situations in college, she “still is a Naismith Player of the Year with her back to the basket. … You want to prepare them for the pros, but their responsibility as a college basketball coach is to do both. And I think that good college coaches prepare them for the work it’s going to take to become the pro they need to be. And it is evident that Lisa [Bluder] and Jan prepared Megan for the work, because she has put it in.”

Iowa’s post development draws top recruits like Heiden, who looks to have a big role as a freshman this season. 

“Being part of a team that utilizes posts in the best way they can is important to me. Some of the schools that didn’t do that as much were immediately checked off the list,”  Heiden told The Next. “Jan, just being who she is and having the skills that she does … she’s a big reason I came here. Even though she moved up to the head coaching position, she’s still teaching me the best she can. And I’m definitely building a bond with Randi. I think we’re meshing well together.”

Full circle

Henderson, then Randi Peterson, was named Miss Iowa Basketball in 1997 after her senior year at Cedar Falls High School in Cedar Falls, Iowa. That fall, she started her collegiate career at the University of Iowa where she was a backup center to Tangela Smith, who was named the 1998 Big Ten Player of the Year before embarking on a 13-year career in the WNBA. 

Henderson was the Hawkeyes’ starting center the next three seasons, including her senior year in which new head coach Lisa Bluder led the team to the Big Ten Tournament championship. Jensen, Bluder’s top assistant, helped Peterson develop into an All-Big Ten post player. 

She then went into coaching, which included a stop at Minnesota-Morris; nine seasons at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; two seasons as assistant coach at University of North Carolina at Charlotte; and seven seasons as head coach at Washington University in St. Louis. 

At Washington, she coached d3hoops.com All-American posts Madeline Homoly (2018-19) and Maya Arnott (2022-23), and center Lexy Harris, who was named the 2024 d3hoops.com National Rookie of the Year.

When Jensen called her early this summer to talk about the Iowa assistant coach spot left open when Jensen was promoted to head coach, Henderson was honored, but had a lot to consider. 

“I think I always thought, ‘Man, it’d be super cool to give back to the coaching staff that gave me so much.’ I stayed connected with them throughout my career, calling Jan or Lisa when I needed things or really felt like I screwed up as a coach. They were always just a phone call away and supportive of my life outside of basketball,” she said. “But I loved being in St Louis. I loved WashU and my experience, so we actually were not at all planning to move.”

Henderson and her husband, former Iowa basketball player Duez Henderson, have two young children in first and second grade. 

“Moving your kids is always hard, and getting them new schools and away from their neighbors, and trying to get them to believe this is better,” she said. “The kids are a little harder sell, but they’re coming along. And I think the community here has been really great, and my family is close.”

Watching their mom coach in a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena should really make the kids come around, she added.

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