Sights & Sounds: Drake marks 50th anniversary of women’s basketball

But come Sunday afternoon, Jensen was clad in black and gold, leading her Hawkeyes to an 86-73 win over the Bulldogs in her first game as head coach against her alma mater.    

Jensen was all business on the sidelines at the Knapp Center, where her No. 13 jersey hangs in the rafters. But at the postgame press conference, the enormity of the situation finally caught up to her as her voice cracked when talking about her love for both programs. 

“How many people can say that they’ve really got to be such a special part of two really good programs? That’s where I feel so blessed,” she said. “I will sing the praises of Iowa because it has also supported women’s sports. My grandmother is in the Hall of Fame. … I just feel overwhelmed because I really love this place, and it was just a weird one to play. … When you love a place, it was just a lot of emotion.” 

Drake head coach Allison Pohlman spoke about the embrace she and Jensen shared at the end of the game. 

“What I think is really, really special is when you’re surrounded by great coaches, you know what each other is going through, and you also really wish the best for each other,” she told reporters. “I think every time I’ve seen Jan, whether it’s on the recruiting trail or in a gym or randomly at different Drake events, she loves this place, and rightly so. I mean, her name’s hung in the rafters. She joined us for the 50th celebration last night as a Drake Bulldog. And so just going back and fully being proud of where you’re from and your experience.”

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Jensen certainly has plenty to be proud of from her Drake experience. During her senior year under new coach Lisa Bluder in 1990-91, Jensen led the nation in scoring with 29.6 points per game and was the Gateway Conference Most Valuable Player. 

She joined Bluder’s coaching staff at Drake in 1993 where she remained until 2000 when Bluder became the head coach at Iowa, taking her staff with her. She was Bluder’s top assistant at Iowa for 24 years before being named head coach after Bluder announced her retirement in May. 

Jensen’s spouse, former Drake player Julie Fitzpatrick, was also pulled at the heartstrings during the weekend that went from reuniting with fellow Drake alumni to watching her wife in her first game as head coach against their beloved alma mater.

“I have so many good feelings. This has been a really special weekend,” Fitzpatrick told The Next before the game Sunday. “Drake did a really tremendous job of making all of the alumni, throughout the course of 50 years who came back, feel so special and really valued. It’s been like a wedding reception on steroids for me, honestly. There’s been so many wonderful people that I’ve been able to see that I haven’t seen for a long time.”

Although she is a Drake Bulldog through and through, Fitzpatrick’s devotion is to her wife and the program she has been coaching in for nearly 25 years.

“This game is always mixed emotions for us. Of course I want Iowa to win this game, this is the one, and every other one we want Drake to do so well. We cheer for Drake, we follow Drake. It’s where we began our lives as young students, and it’s the foundation of my life, for sure, and everything that followed. But for these two hours, I am a Hawkeye fan and I want the Hawkeyes to win,” she said. 

The historic in-state rivalry

It was no coincidence that Drake celebrated its 50th anniversary of women’s basketball the weekend that the Hawkeyes came to town. 

The Bulldogs played their first ever official women’s basketball game against Iowa on Nov. 20, 1974, in Des Moines, defeating the Hawkeyes, 78-65.

Drake owned the series for more than a decade, going 19-1 against Iowa from the first game in 1974 until Dec. 4, 1986, in which they lost at home. The series has recently been dominated by Iowa since Drake won at home, 81-76, on Dec. 18, 2016 when the Bulldogs defeated a Hawkeye team that featured Megan Gustafson, Kathleen Doyle, Tania Davis and Ally Disterhoft (whose mother, Missy Slockett Disterhoft, was teammates with Jensen and Fitzpatrick at Drake). 

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Laura Leonard, who played for Drake from 1979-1983, has served as the lead analyst for Missouri Valley Conference regular season and postseason championship women’s basketball productions and tournament softball telecasts for the past 21 years.

She spoke with The Next, before calling Sunday’s game, about the rich tradition of Drake women’s basketball.  

“We had a really good team for four years. We went to the WNIT three years, and then went to the NCAA tournament in my junior year … and made it to the Elite Eight,” she said. “We had some really good players and just a fun atmosphere with the crowds and everything, everybody kind of embraced us and followed us.”

While women’s basketball has erupted in popularity over the past few years, Leonard said it has always been entertaining. 

“I say to people, ‘It’s about time. Where have you been?’ I mean, it’s such a great game. The women’s game is so good and so fun to watch,” she added. “And I think just the phenomena that has happened over the last couple of years, to bring it up to a level of where people are interested in, I think it’s amazing. I think it’s fantastic for these young women to be able to experience that. and what should have been happening for a long time. But it’s here now, and let’s embrace it, and let’s keep it moving.”

A game 50 years in the making

The atmosphere Sunday at the game in the sold-out Knapp Center was much like a high-stakes high school game in Iowa – but in a much larger gym. The home crowd clad in blue dominated the stands, but the visiting crowd in black and gold was well-represented throughout the 6,400-seat arena. And both fan bases were engaged from start to finish — cheering for their team and jeering against the other. 

A group of Drake alumni from all eras sat together and were introduced at halftime. Former Drake coach Bluder and players Fitzpatrick and Jenni Fitzgerald, who also retired last spring from Bluder’s Iowa coaching staff, sat behind the Iowa bench, but mingled with the Drake alumni before the game. 

Also behind Iowa’s bench was Caitlin Clark, the former Hawkeye phenom who regularly attended Drake games while growing up in West Des Moines. The WNBA Rookie of the Year, who has become a sensation in the sports world, largely was left alone by fans and media, watching the game with her brother, Colin, and cheering on her Hawks and jeering the refs.    

In honor of the 50th anniversary, Drake debuted brand-new throwback uniforms designed by Doree Ward, a player on Drake’s inaugural team in 1974, who designed the original threads for the first Bulldog bunch to wear. The colors, piping and text are all replicated from that initial uniform design.

Both teams were amped up for the occasion, as Drake hit five 3-pointers and senior center Addison O’Grady went a perfect 7-for-7 for 14 points in the first quarter. Drake led 25-21 after the first 10 minutes before Iowa outscored the Bulldogs by 14 points in the second quarter to take the 45-35 lead into halftime. 

Reigning MVC Player of the Year Katie Dinnebier came out of halftime on fire, scoring 19 points in the third quarter and 28 of her career high 40 points in the second half. In the first 40-point game for a Drake player since Lizzy Wendell scored 43 against Missouri State on Jan. 30, 2015, Dinnebier was 8-of-17 from the field, including 7-of-15 from 3-point range. Drawing 13 fouls, she made 17 of her 20 free throw attempts. 

Drake cut Iowa’s lead to four, 54-50, with 4:32 left in the third quarter, and kept it close until Iowa pulled out to an 11-point lead to start the fourth quarter. 

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“I thought we had them, and we sure hung right with them,” Dinnebier told reporters after the game. “We are a really good basketball team, and I don’t think the score reflects that. It should have been way closer than what it was, but it was fun. It was fun to have fans out here. It was fun to represent Drake for the 50th anniversary. Those are the games you want to play. You want to play in a packed arena.

“These are the most fun games, in my opinion, that we play all year to just see the fans come out, whether it’s Drake or Iowa or just people who want to come and see the excitement of women’s basketball,” the senior from West Des Moines, Iowa, added.

For the Hawkeyes, O’Grady continued her breakout season with a career-high 27 points and 10 rebounds, earning her second career double-double. Senior transfer guard Lucy Olsen poured in 18 points, while junior Hannah Stuelke added 16. Freshman Teagan Mallegni rounded out the double-digit scorers with 13 points.

O’Grady, who averaged 8.5 minutes per game in the previous three years, playing behind Monika Czinano and Stuelke, is averaging 23 minutes per game this season, starting all four games. Averaging just 3.3 points per game her first three seasons, she is now averaging 16.8 points per game, and is a key component to Iowa’s successful 4-0 start. 

“I have grown tremendously in my confidence just getting the reps in practice and now in the games,” O’Grady told reporters after her career game. “Obviously at the end of the season, both my junior and sophomore year, getting reps against the really good teams in the Final Four, Elite Eight and Sweet 16, but now getting a bunch of minutes and just kind of getting into a rhythm early in the season has been really good.”

Jensen, aka the “Post Whisperer,” has taken notice of O’Grady’s improvement. 

“I think the biggest compliment I can give her is I’m now starting to have Czinano and Gustafson expectations,” Jensen said. “I was kind of cranky in a couple things she did out there, and that means that the expectations are growing, but I only know they’re growing because I know she can do it.”

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The tradition of all four state schools playing each other continues this Wednesday as No. 8 Iowa State plays at University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. Drake plays at Iowa State in Ames on Nov. 24, the Cyclones head to Iowa City to play the Hawkeyes on Dec. 11 and UNI plays at Iowa on Dec. 20. Drake and UNI, who are top two preseason teams in the Missouri Valley Conference, will play each other twice in the MVC regular season.  

Pohlman, who played at UNI, hopes the exposure gains new fans for all the teams when not playing each other.   

“I would hope that every Iowa fan is now converted to a Drake Bulldog fan, because we will not play them [Iowa] again this year,” she said after Sunday’s game. “I think that there are a lot of proud moments that both institutions should have, but really being women’s basketball fans, I think the state of Iowa has a lot of things to be proud of.”