Gophers ready to visit Iowa City in the middle of Caitlin Clark mania

Mara Braun is right in the middle of it.

Saturday in Iowa City, she and her Gophers teammates will try to beat a fourth-ranked Iowa women's basketball team in a jam-packed Carver-Hawkeye Arena, a team led by presumptive Player of the Year Caitlin Clark.

So, after the Gophers (11-1, 1-0 Big Ten) returned to practice following Christmas break, it's been all about preparing. Game plans, assignments. But Braun can take a step back and see the bigger picture. Clark, the nation's leading scorer (30.5 points) and one of the most prolific players in women's college basketball history, is changing the game.

"No doubt," said Braun, a Gophers sophomore who is second to Clark in scoring in the Big Ten (20.3). "Just over the past year, honestly you can see the viewing of women's basketball has gone up. The recognition is constantly growing."

And much of that is because of Clark. Last season's NCAA title game against Louisiana State was the most-watched women's college basketball game ever, drawing an average of 9.9 million viewers — more than double that of 2022 — with a peak of 12.6 million.

The Hawkeyes — second in the nation in attendance with an average of 11,143 fans last season — are leading the Big Ten this year at 14,998. They drew an NCAA-record 55,646 fans for a charity exhibition game against DePaul at Kinnick Stadium, home of the football Hawkeyes, on Oct. 15.

"It's kind of a great combination of timing," Gophers coach Dawn Plitzuweit said. "You see women's basketball on the rise, the fan base is really excited, and what [Clark] is doing in terms of growing the game is unique and really special."

For all that, it is also just a game, a challenge. The Gophers have won eight in a row since losing 62-44 at home to an eighth-ranked Connecticut team led by Paige Bueckers on Nov. 19. The Gophers were within 26-23 at the half before the Huskies pulled away in the third quarter.

And now, Iowa, as Big Ten play resumes. The Hawkeyes (12-2, 1-0) play with a frenetic pace, hit the offense boards hard and get contributions up and down the lineup. The Gophers will play only their second road game of the season in one of the hardest places to play in the nation.

Bring it on, they say. After the Gophers' last game, a 100-45 victory over Lindenwood, Braun and Maggie Czinano — whose sister, Monika, was a star at Iowa — said the goal for the younger Gophers team is to create that kind of atmosphere at Williams Arena.

"That will take time, and we know that," Braun said. "Right now we're getting the sold-out games when we're playing UConn or Iowa. Eventually we're working towards people wanting to come just to watch us. I think we're on a really good track right now."

Against UConn, the Gophers played very good defense but struggled on offense. This week Braun said she might have been so geared up to play against Bueckers — her old high school rival — that she was perhaps tense. Braun scored 12 points on 4-for-21 shooting overall, making two of 11 three-pointers.

But Braun's game has been on a crescendo. She has scored 21 points or more six times in the eight games since, making 30 of 67 threes. She has 20 or more points in her past five games, the first Gophers player to do that in five seasons.

In that stretch Braun has averaged 25.2 points, shot 53% overall and 52.4% (22-for-42) on threes. This game is about an Iowa team with national title aspirations against a young Minnesota team taking steps in Plitzuweit's first season here.

But it's also a matchup of a national star with a rising one.

"Mara's had a really good week of understanding what we need to do," Plitzuweit said. "On both ends of the court. How we want to attack. I think she's had a good mindset about this whole thing, an even-keeled approach, which is important."

The Gophers say they believe they are a better team than the one that lost to UConn. The defense has remained strong, the offense has gotten more consistent.

"I think I'm ready," Gophers center Sophie Hart said. "And I think our team is, too. These are the types of environments you dream of playing in as a young girl."

It won't be easy. The Hawkeyes are 42-9 at home in the Clark era, 21-2 since the start of the 2022-23 season. To win there, with that noise, teams have to have an almost empathic sense of how to play together, a chemistry Plitzuweit believes the Gophers have been building all season. Since the UConn loss, they've played against a variety of styles and gotten more playing time for a starting lineup with four underclassmen.

But the Gophers haven't won in Iowa City since 2007.

The game will match an Iowa team scoring 90.5 points a game against the Gophers, who rank first in the Big Ten in fewest points allowed (54.5).

Iowa is shooting 50.8% and Minnesota is second in the conference at field goal defense (35.7%). Iowa has won nine games in a row, the Gophers eight. Iowa can dominate in transition while the Gophers — who have averaged only 10.5 turnovers in their past four games — are learning to take care of the ball.

"It will be fun, the atmosphere," Braun said. "We've been prepping for it, blasting music, getting ready. I think everyone in the nation knows about Carver-Hawkeye Arena. It will be cool to go there, with a sellout crowd."