Iowa Welcomes Familiar Faces This Week

A tough week is ahead for the Iowa women's basketball team with three games in the next seven days. Two of the most successful coaches in womens basketball bring their teams to Iowa City and they're both very familiar to area basketball fans.

Lisa Bluder, and her 25th-ranked Iowa women are off to an 11-2 start and are undefeated at home. It's not going to be an easy week though. It all begins tonight with a 7 o'clock game against Rutgers, on the Big Ten Network. The Scarlet Knights are coached by former Hawkeye coach C. Vivian Stringer. I know you remember her. C. Vivian won 269 games, losing only 84, during 12 years as Iowa's head coach from 1983 to 1995. I was there in 1985 when 22,000-plus packed into Carver-Hawkeye Arena for a women's basketball game. It was an awesome day. This season, her Rutgers team is 10-3 and despite winning five in a row, is unranked. C. Vivian is now 67 and has won 962 games in her collegiate career, third on the all-time wins list. She became a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009.

Following a visit to Michigan Thursday night, the Iowa women host #4 Maryland Sunday afternoon at 2 (ESPN 2). The Terrapins are coached by Brenda Frese, who graduated from Cedar Rapids Washington in the late 80's. Frese is in her 14th season at Maryland, where her team won the 2006 National Championship and she's reached the Final Four each of the last two years. Five of her first 13 teams have won at least 30 games in a season. Frese is in her 17th season of coaching and has already won 408 games. The Iowa women played Maryland only once last year, in College Park so this is Frese's first visit to Carver-Hawkeye since Maryland joined the Big 10 last year. Brenda has coached at Iowa only once, in 2002, when her Minnesota Golden Gophers beat Iowa 94-83.