At Monday morning's press availability, head coach Jan Jensen said that guard Sydney Affolter, out as she recuperates from an offseason knee surgery, is progressing well in her recovery and may yet play some minutes in Wednesday's official season opener against Northern Illinois.

"We're so thankful that [Affolter] is ahead of schedule, and that's not surprising," said Jensen at Monday's media availability. "I don't know if I've coached anyone that's as tough — certainly, she's in the Megan Gustafson category, Kate Martin. But she didn't want to sit out, and when she had to sit out, she made it clear, before any procedure happened, that she would be back earlier, and she is."

Affolter averaged 8.4 points and 6.4 rebounds last season, serving mostly in a reserve role until guard Molly Davis suffered a knee injury in the regular season finale against Ohio State. In Affolter's nine postseason starts, she averaged 12.7 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.1 assists.

Affolter said at Media Day in October that like Stuelke, she had essentially endured all of last season with one good knee.

"I haven't played without knee pain in quite some time, so recovery's been going great," Affolter said. "I had previous meniscus surgery in high school, so there was a lot of wear and tear on my knee, and I played with it for a while."

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Still, Affolter's path back to the starting lineup will last into the regular season, according to Jensen.

"We're going to work her in slowly; hopefully we can get a few more reps in today, and a few more tomorrow," said Jensen. "It'd be wonderful if she could see some minutes on Wednesday. Really happy with her progress. She's so fit, and really fit in her mind too, which is great."

To that end, Jensen stopped short of promising increased minutes for Affolter against Virginia Tech in Sunday's showdown in Charlotte — but it's clear that both Affolter and the team's prudence is a matter of necessity, not choice.

"I think it depends on how the game flows, but really, how her knee's responding," said Jensen. "I do know that Syd is tough, and as long as she can, but I think it would be wise for us to [use] load management, if possible. But you get into the thick of a game [...] and it'll be tough to slow down Syd, and then it's probably going to be tough to slow down me. So I might need our trainer for that one."

"Before I got the surgery, [the pain] was definitely a lot to handle," said Affolter. "So I'm very glad I got it done, it was definitely needed. ... It's a very long season, there's a lot of games to be played, and I don't want to push it too early to for it not to be completely 100% in January."

Affolter's return to practice also means that Iowa will finally have its three most experienced starters -- Affolter, Stuelke, and senior Villanova transfer Lucy Olsen -- sharing a court for the first time.

A celebrated transfer guard, Olsen arrived on campus in the spring, after Stuelke had surgery to repair knee cartilage, and by the time Stuelke was cleared to return to the court Affolter had undergone her own procedure.

"You can look at it two ways: disappointing, and it is in that regard, to build your chemistry, to get Lucy understanding how Hannah plays and understanding how Syd plays," said Jensen in October. "The positive, it does give other people a lot of reps. It gives some of the young people a nice audition. ... But that's something that you can't discount. That's a lot of days missed in the summer and a lot of days missed this fall where you just can't get that synergy."

As the effect on Iowa's rotation goes, while guard Taylor McCabe is likely to remain the beneficiary of Affolter's absence from the starting lineup on Wednesday, expect true freshman guard Taylor Stremlow to fill plenty of the missing minutes in her own right.

Stremlow, mirroring Affolter's abject fearlessness on the court, led all true freshmen with 25 minutes played and a team-high nine rebounds (including three offensive boards) against Missouri Western in last week's exhibition win.

"That kid [Stremlow], she's just doing everything you need her to do," said Jensen. "She's been playing the backup 1. She really is a 3, but she'll play a backup 2. Heck, that kid would play a 5 backup if you needed her to, with no questions asked."

Make no mistake, though: as soon as Affolter's cleared to start, she will, and neither she nor the team has much use for treating her knee like a priceless vase. How Affolter holds up to practice in these next couple weeks will be as instructive as her game minutes in determining her return to a full workload.