She's back!
Lisa Bluder, the 2019 Naismith Coach of the Year, is returning to women's college basketball in a different capacity for the 2025-2026 season.
Bluder retired after the 2024 season, during which she guided the Hawkeyes to their second consecutive National Championship appearance.
Iowa is the only Big Ten program to make back-to-back championship games after playing in the 2023 and 2024 National Championship.
Bluder has been enjoying her retirement, including returning to Iowa City for Caitlin Clark's jersey retirement ceremony and singing the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field over the summer.
Bluder must not have been enjoying retirement as much as we thought because she is making her return to college basketball in a different capacity.
NBC announces that former Hawkeye coach Lisa Bluder will join the broadcast team as a women's basketball College Countdown studio analyst.
— Keith Murphy (@MurphyKeith) October 31, 2025
Bluder will work Big Ten, Big 12, and Big East games on NBC & Peacock.
She should be terrific.
Bluder retired in 2024 following 24… pic.twitter.com/mydWSZAP3J
WHO TV's Keith Murphy reported that Bluder will return to the broadcast booth this season as an analyst for "College Countdown" on NBC.
Bluder is slated to work on Big Ten, Big 12, and Big East games on NBC and Peacock.
Bluder returns to the broadcast booth after a stint as an analyst for the Big Ten Network during the 2025 Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament.
As a head coach for St. Ambrose, Drake, and Iowa, Bluder amassed 889 career wins, including five Big Ten Tournament titles (2001, 2019, 2022-2024), two Big Ten regular season titles (2008, 2022), and back-to-back National Championship appearances in her forty-year coaching career.
Bluder also had the opportunity to coach Caitlin Clark and Megan Gustafson, two of the best women's college basketball players of all time.
She will now take her extensive experience and vast basketball knowledge to the broadcast booth as NBC made a great decision to add her to the staff.