LINCOLN, Neb. − One of Lisa Bluder’s lasting legacies in 24 years as Iowa women’s basketball head coach was the mantra, “Everyone matters.”

From a generational superstar like Caitlin Clark to the medical staff to the men’s practice squad to the last player on the bench, Bluder reinforced the message time after time after time. And, the best part is, everyone bought in.

Everyone matters.

An example like Kate Martin will endure forever. She tore an ACL days before her Iowa arrival as a freshman in 2018, but she learned to pour into her teammates that first season that saw Megan Gustafson and the Hawkeyes reach the Elite Eight. She learned that her value that season was to be a positive teammate.

Her second season, she played sparse minutes. By the time Martin was a sixth-year senior, she was not only the team’s “glue” in back-to-back Final Four runs, she was the No. 2 scoring option behind Clark. Martin stuck with it and now, against all early odds, is sticking in the WNBA.

Clark spoke recently at her No. 22 jersey retirement about the team culture that’s been kept in place under the direction of Jan Jensen, Bluder’s longtime assistant and now first-year head coach. Clark was confident that success would be coming for this team sooner than later.

And the more this first season post-Clark and post-Bluder unfolds, the easier it is to see that this program is very much going in the right direction.

On a Monday night that saw repeated perplexing whistles and key Hawkeye players on the sidelines with foul trouble, “everyone matters” won the day.

And Iowa defeated Nebraska, 81-66, in a dominant performance before 6,535 fans at Pinnacle Bank Arena.

“If you’d have told me all that foul trouble in the first quarter … and we’re still going to come out of here with a win?” Jensen said. “Yeah, that was crazy.”

At one point, Nebraska had shot 23 free throws to Iowa’s six. The pinnacle of questionable calls was Addison O’Grady’s clean blocked shot on Alexis Markowski late in the third quarter, with Iowa’s lead at 52-43.

Quick sidebar: The Iowa team meets every day in a circle, another Bluder staple because it has no true top and bottom, no starting point and end point. Jensen has continued the circle tradition.

Iowa leaned on that circle mentality amid the foul adversity Monday.

“You’ve got to just stay in the circle,” said Lucy Olsen, who played all 40 minutes and scored a season-high 32 points. “You just laugh it off like, ‘It’s not really happening.’ … You can’t control what the refs are calling. So you just take a step back and just remember, stay in the circle, every huddle.”

Instead of getting overly animated on the sideline like she had during Iowa’s five-game losing streak, Jensen remained calm and encouraged her team to try to stop fouling and control what it could control, like defense, rebounding and following the game plan.

7 happy minutes from Jan Jensen after Iowa’s 81-66 win at Nebraska

The Iowa head coach saw her team play another complete game, this one avenging an earlier-season loss to the Cornhuskers.

“Every game is a different story,” Jensen said, “and you have to adjust.”

This game’s story was about Olsen, the fouls and … the young freshmen, who were thrust into key roles and looked like veterans on the Big Ten Conference road.

“That’s what I think was so fun about this win,” Jensen said.

Ava Heiden, a 6-foot-4 true freshman who had not played a minute in Iowa’s last three games, was suddenly on the floor late in the first quarter with O’Grady and Hannah Stuelke saddled with two fouls. She responded with six second-quarter points on 3-for-4 shooting and played good defense on Markowski, Nebraska’s top player.

Heiden stayed ready. She played ready, unafraid of the moment.

“The freshmen are here to serve the team,” Heiden said, “and I think we’re doing a great job.”

Iowa’s Ava Heiden was ready when number got called against Nebraska

The freshman contributed six key second-quarter points in Iowa’s 81-66 win at Nebraska with teammates in foul trouble.

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What a quote. What a mature mentality as a freshman.

Heiden isn’t the only Iowa rookie who has had inconsistent playing time.

Some nights, Taylor Stremlow plays 26 minutes; other nights, she’ll play eight.

Aaliyah Guyton might be great one night (15 points in 30 minutes vs. Northwestern), off the next (1-for-9 shooting vs. USC).

Teagan Mallegni has continued to get chances in small doses. Monday, with Sydney Affolter in foul trouble, she played 10:42 and delivered a clutch three-point play in the second quarter.

Iowa turned a 24-24 tie into a 36-27 lead, with all four freshmen scoring a bucket apiece. That’s a testament to the work they’ve been putting in behind the scenes.

Afterward in the locker room, the team also roared to celebrate Mallegni drawing her first charge of the season.

“When they’re used to playing so many minutes in high school, and then they play eight … it’s hard for them to realize how great that eight is,” Jensen said. “And I thought that’s what was cool about (Monday), is that they got their opportunities … and then they were ready for the moment.”

That’s the mark of a good team, which Iowa is right now with five straight wins to follow its concerning five-game losing streak. The Hawkeyes (17-7 overall, 7-6 in Big Ten play) are now solidly in the NCAA Tournament field as long as they don’t collapse in their final five regular-season games. Up next: Thursday at home against Rutgers (6:30 p.m., Big Ten Plus), which is 2-11 in conference play.

“We talked about (playing) your best basketball in February,” Jensen said. “And so far, we’ve been showing that.”

The freshmen respect the veterans and are understanding of their roles; the veterans such as Olsen and Affolter appreciate what they’ve seen from the rookies. After Affolter’s 3-pointer late in the third quarter pushed Iowa’s lead to double digits for the first time, Stremlow was one of the first players off the bench to give her a chest bump.

“They’re special,” Olsen said of the freshmen. “They show up every day, no matter how many minutes they play. It’s confusing as a freshman. You never know if you’re going to get in.

“We all have trust, every time they come on the floor. We know they’re going to try their best, and they’re good basketball players, too.”

Everyone matters.

Jensen has talked often about how close she thought this team was from breaking through, even amid the five-game losing slide that saw the Hawkeyes repeatedly find frustrating ways to collapse.

Now this team has reached a point where everyone knows their roles, where everyone’s comfortable in their roles … and that allows everyone to play freer and looser. That’s what a true team is all about.

We saw that with Olsen’s magnificent night, with 12-for-20 shooting, six rebounds and seven assists. We saw that with Taylor McCabe, the junior who didn’t play a year ago at Nebraska and this time knocked down five 3s and scored 17 points against her home-state team.

Nebraska native Taylor McCabe showed out for Iowa, her big contingent

The Iowa junior had her best game against the Cornhuskers, draining five 3-pointers in the second half Monday in Iowa’s 81-66 win.

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The vibes are good with Jensen and the Hawkeyes entering the home stretch, and the confidence is justifiably high.

“Our ceiling is so high, and I think that we’re hitting it in stride, right at the right time,” McCabe said. “You just see it every day in practice, too. Those members of our team that don’t get in to play as much, they’re getting better, and so they’re raising everybody else to keep getting better.

“And we’re just all gradually moving up that ladder. I really think that we’re just going to do some damage down the stretch.”

Hawkeyes columnist Chad Leistikow has served for 30 years with The Des Moines Register and USA TODAY Sports Network. Chad is the 2023 INA Iowa Sports Columnist of the Year and NSMA Co-Sportswriter of the Year in Iowa. Join Chad’s text-message group (free for subscribers) at HawkCentral.com/HawkeyesTexts. Follow @ChadLeistikow on X.