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Bruce Pearl is certainly making headlines as a college basketball analyst this season. He just butchered Caitlin Clark and Lisa Bluder’s names when previewing the Iowa Hawkeyes‘ game against UCLA. By the way, it was prior to the Big Ten Championship Game.
UCLA, the No. 1 seed, ended up blowing out No. 2 Iowa 96-45 to claim the conference tournament crown. So not even “Caitlin Smith” could’ve saved them Sunday.
Pearl thought so too. Actually, well, we don’t know what happened here other than a freudian slip from the former Auburn coach.
“Iowa women’s basketball, no superstar Caitlin Smith,” Pearl began on the broadcast. “No Hall of Fame coaches C. Vivian Stringer … you’re right, Caitlin Clark or Lisa Blunder, Jan Jensen, they’ve got these Hawkeyes going into the paint.”
Stringer, the former long time Rutgers coach, is a basketball Hall of Famer. But, she coached Iowa from 1983-95, over three decades since her last game with the Hawkeyes. Still, she led Iowa to the NCAA Tournament nine times, one Final Four and six Big Ten titles. C. Viv finished her career with 1,055 wins (535 with Rutgers, including two Final Four appearances and a national title game appearance).
Clark, who brought Iowa and women’s college basketball to a fever pitch plays for the Indiana Fever in the WNBA, winning Rookie of the Year and having a solid Year 2 before injuries sidelined her and her teammates for large portions of 2025.
At least Pearl got a name right once he corrected himself. He named long time coach Lisa Bluder’s replacement Jan Jensen during the preview of the game. Sticking with the present day, Jensen admitted she didn’t do her best work against UCLA.
“I think what you saw with the team with us, we got on our heels early,” Jensen said. “What you saw was, if you let that margin get a little too great, you can never really ever shrink it. Then with a younger team, which we’re a lot younger than were older, it just got away from us — mentally, emotionally, and certainly physically.
“A lot of credit to them. I don’t think I coached my best. I told the kids that. But I would hope that this loss does not define Iowa women’s basketball season. I think they’ve been stellar all year.”
