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71 T he University of Iowa women's basketball team enjoyed a special 2013-14 season. The campaign featured 27 wins, equaling the second-highest total in program history, and 14 home wins, also equaling the second-most in school history. Iowa was one of 14 teams nationally — and the only Big Ten team — to make its seventh-straight NCAA Tournament appearance, and one of 21 teams to advance to the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament in each of the last two seasons. UI head coach Lisa Bluder looks back on her 14th season at the helm of the UI program. "Fun," said Bluder, when asked to describe the 2013- 14 Hawkeye team. "This team had fun together and enjoyed being around each other. Winning is always fun, but that's not the main reason that this team was fun to be around. They were fun to be around because they enjoyed each other. They enjoyed coming to practice, believed in each other, and that's what made the season fun. "Cohesiveness is another adjective I would use to describe this team. When you're ranked that high in assists...that is impossible to do unless you believe in each other. If you're selfish you don't do those things. It was a very cohesive group that was unselfish that believed in team work, and because they bought into all of those things, that is why we won." Where does this season rank for you? This year has to be one of the top ones because of the satisfaction knowing people didn't expect it. When people expect you to be good sometimes that comes with pressure. I don't think people had high expectations for our team. We certainly weren't ranked in the top three (in the Big Ten preseason poll). Although personally, our team always felt we should have been in the preseason polls. People on the outside always thought, 'How are they going to make up for the loss of Morgan (Johnson) and Jaime (Printy)? They don't have much depth. They don't have much height.' We never looked at ourselves that way. Our team always believed in ourselves. It is satisfying doing something people don't think you're going to do, and nobody would have picked our team to finish in the top-20 in the polls this year. What was your favorite on-court memories from this season? There are quite a few. The Syracuse win was huge, and Dayton was also big as we won in overtime and secured our first top-20 win. The Cancun (Challenge) wins were fun. It's different when you're there. It's a different feel. The win at Ohio State was also fun; the players recognized that we hadn't won there and it was neat to see how excited they got. The Penn State win was huge because it was a top-10 road victory… they don't come around very often. Certainly, the win over Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament, having the opportunity to avenge that and advance to the semifinals was big and the Ohio State semifinal win was huge. By PATRICK SOJKA Bluder Looks Back on 2013-14