Lisa Bluder has one of the most significant acquisitions to the 2024-2025 transfer portal cycle: Villanova point guard Lucy Olsen. This past season, the highly sought-after transfer earned first-team All-Big East honours. She was also selected the conference’s Most Improved Player. Olsen helped Villanova go to the WBIT championship game. Olsen scored 29 and 30 points in the tournament’s opening two rounds. She had 21 points, six rebounds, six assists, four steals, and three blocks in the semifinals against Penn State.
“We are looking forward to welcoming Lucy into our program this summer,” Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder stated. “She is an outstanding student-athlete with an impressive resume. Her skill level and demeanour matched exactly what we were looking for from the transfer portal. “It’s an exciting time to be an Iowa Hawkeye!”
After losing Caitlin Clark, Gabbie Marshall, Molly Davis, and Kate Martin, Iowa sorely needed to get backcourt experience. Bluder and her crew spotted Olsen early on and determined that she would be an excellent fit.
The Iowa staff made her an instant top target, and the Hawkeyes were able to secure her. LSU and Maryland were frequently mentioned during this recruitment, and those two institutions are well-known for their prominence in the women’s collegiate basketball scene. Iowa was able to beat out both of them for Olsen, demonstrating that Iowa will have some clout with top transfers as well as in the high school recruiting landscape, given how the program has grown nationally in recent years.
Iowa Athletics has provided the full news release, which is included below.
University of Iowa P. Sue Beckwith, MD, and Head Women’s Basketball Coach Lisa Bluder announced on Thursday that transfer Lucy Olsen has signed with the University of Iowa.
Olson, a senior, formerly competed at Villanova University for three seasons. ESPN.com ranked her as the fourth best player in its transfer portal.
Last season, the Collegeville, Pennsylvania native ranked third in the country in scoring (23.3 points per game), trailing only Caitlin Clark and JuJu Watkins of USC. This season, she scored more than 20 points in 25 games, topping 30 points in ten of them, including a career-high 40 points against Temple. Furthermore, she averaged 4.8 rebounds and 3.8 assists each game.
The Associated Press awarded the junior guard an honourable mention All-American. Last season, Olsen was named to the All-Big East first team and received the Most Improved Player Award.
Olson became the 31st player in Wildcat program history to reach 1,000 career points during her junior season.
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