Iowa’s 2022-2023 season ended just over three weeks ago and yet it feels like so much longer. In the days after the national title game, some of basketball’s best players—Hailey Van Lith, Aneesah Morrow, Lauren Betts, Lexi Donarski—entered the transfer portal.

That led to days of speculation about how Iowa could free up a scholarship to land an impact transfer. Then Shateah Wetering entered the portal, and suddenly a scholarship actually was available.

We know that Iowa reached out to Morrow about coming to Iowa City. The coaches almost certainly reached out to Betts too. Unfortunately, Betts picked UCLA and Morrow announced a top 3 of South Carolina, LSU, and USC. Donarski is also off the board, and Van Lith hasn’t been linked to Iowa.

This year’s transfer portal had a few big name stars, but was light on players that would clearly upgrade next year’s Iowa roster. At this point, a transfer seems unlikely. Let’s take a look at the players that are committed to play for Iowa in 2023-2024.

Players in italics are eligible to use a Covid season still.

Covid Season: G Gabbie Marshall, G Molly Davis, G Kate Martin

Senior: G Caitlin Clark

Junior: G Kylie Feuerbach, C Sharon Goodman, C Addison O’Grady, G Sydney Affolter, F/C AJ Ediger

Sophomore: F Hannah Stuelke, G Taylor McCabe, F Jada Gyamfi

Freshman: PG Kennise Johnson-Etienne, F Ava Jones

We know that Clark, Marshall, and Martin will be three of Iowa’s starters next season. Clark is one of the best to ever play college basketball. Martin has started every game Iowa has played the last three seasons. Marshall started all but two of Iowa’s games the last three seasons (she was injured in the other two) and also started once during her freshman year. She will be one of those rare players that starts a game in five different seasons.

Iowa also has significant experience behind them. Davis will return as Iowa’s backup 1 and will also spend time at the 2. Feuerbach was one of Iowa’s key backups in the 2021-2022 season before tearing her ACL and missing last season. Affolter came into her own as a backup last season and looks ready for an expanded role.

Sophomore Taylor McCabe might be one of the victims of Marshall and Martin using their Covid season. She showed promise a three-point shooter in limited action last season, but might struggle to play again this year with six experienced guards returning.

At some point in their careers O’Grady, Goodman, Stuelke, and Ediger have all served as Iowa’s primary backup 5 to Monika Czinano.

Goodman was the backup 5 in Iowa’s 2020-2021 season that ended in the Sweet 16. But she lost her 2021-2022 season to a torn ACL and barely played last year. Where Goodman’s game stands post-injury is still an open question.

O’Grady was Iowa’s backup 5 in 2021-2022 and looked to have significant potential. But last year, she fell out of favor early in the season and didn’t truly regain it until the NCAA Tournament, when Iowa needed her size as the backup 5 to match up against bigger teams.

Stuelke was the backup 5 for much of last year, but she was also the backup 4 for much of the year, too. With McKenna Warnock also departing, Iowa might choose to play her primarily at the 4 next year.

Saying Ediger was Iowa’s primary backup 5 for a time is true in the narrowest sense of the term. Ediger was the backup 5 for a couple games when O’Grady fell out of favor and before Stuelke’s role was expanded to include time at the 5. Ediger hustles, works hard on the boards, and has shown some ability to score in the post, but she is undersized for a 5 and it’s unclear if the she will develop into more than a reserve.

Having significant depth and experience at the 5 is important for Iowa, but at least one of these players will need to take a significant step forward for Iowa to make another deep post-season run.

For three years now McKenna Warnock has been nearly the perfect stretch 4 in Iowa’s system. She was one of the better three-point shooters in the country and spent most of her time on the perimeter spacing the floor. But she could also rebound like a forward and was an efficient scorer around the basket.

Iowa doesn’t have an experienced 4 with a game like Warnock’s on the roster. In fact, the only natural 4 likely to play any minutes at all next year is Gyamfi, who only played 27 total minutes as a freshman.

As mentioned, Stuelke is one option at the 4 next year. Another is for Iowa to go small using Martin or Affolter as the 4 in a 4-guard lineup. Who will start at the 4 next year is probably the biggest question that will need to be answered between now and November.

Most years Iowa has at least one freshman that steps in and plays a big role in her first year on campus. That is unlikely this year for multiple reasons.

Before Ava Jones’ tragic accident, she was a Top 100 recruit that might’ve been an option for playing time at the 4 position. Now, she is working her way back through multiple surgeries and her future is uncertain. What we do know is that she will not be ready to play next season.

Johnson-Etienne faces the same challenges that McCabe does. At 5’8", she is strictly limited to the backcourt at Iowa. Given Iowa’s significant veteran depth at the 1 and 2 in particular, it is unlikely that she will find a place in the 2023-24 rotation, barring injury.

Next season Iowa will return most of the players that led it to the first national championship game in program history. But the loss of Warnock and Czinano looms large, and Iowa will need some of its returning players to step up if it wants to compete for another run to the Final Four.