Iowa Women’s Basketball Team Loses One of Top Reserves to Injury

An all too familiar injury in college basketball has claimed the upcoming season of one of the Iowa women's team's top bench players. One of the nation's best players was also lost to the same injury this week.

Iowa women's basketball coach Lisa Bluder has announced that junior guard Kylie Feuerbach tore the ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) in her right knee this week. She is scheduled to have surgery later this month and will miss the entire 2022-23 season.

Feuerbach, who played her first season at Iowa State before transferring to Iowa prior to her sophomore season, played in all 32 games for the Hawkeyes last year. She averaged 3.4 points and 1.3 rebounds per game. Feuerbach was also third on the team in free throw percentage hitting 25 of her 29 attempts, good for 86.2 percent.

In a very early preseason poll for the 2022-23 season, ESPN ranked Iowa 6th in the nation. Iowa is led by Caitlin Clark, who averaged 27 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists per game during her sophomore season.

Clark's friend, former USA Basketball teammate, and current Connecticut Husky Paige Bueckers, is dealing with the same injury as Feuerbach. Bueckers, who was the consensus national player of the year as a first year player in 2020-21, tore the ACL in her left knee during a pick-up game on Monday. She missed approximately three months last season due to an injury to the same knee. Bueckers had surgery on Friday, and will miss the upcoming season. ESPN had UConn 2nd in their preseason rankings prior to Bueckers injury.

Clark and Bueckers (in photo below) went head-to-head in the Sweet 16 of the 2021 NCAA Tournament. A tight game most of the way, Iowa lost 92-72.