On Monday it was announced that the Iowa women’s basketball program picked up an extremely interesting player via the transfer portal in Emely Rodriguez.
Rodriguez, 20, spent her freshman season as a small forward for the Central Florida Knights, where she averaged 11.9 points and 5.3 rebounds per game in 26.4 minutes per contest.
Rodriguez is a very nice pickup for Jan Jensen heading into her second season as head coach and she deserves credit for that portal win. She might be able to throw a hat tip to Caitlin Clark, though, because the former Iowa superstar may have swayed Rodriguez to Iowa City.
Clark didn’t say anything personally to Rodriguez as far as we know, but her otherworldly presence as a Hawkeye caught Rodriguez’s eye when she travelled from the Dominican Republic to Kissimmee, Florida to chase her basketball dreams back in 2021.
According to a report from Chad Leistikow of the Des Moines Register, Rodriguez didn’t watch any college basketball growing up in the Dominican Republic. Clark was a sophomore at Iowa when Rodriguez came to the states, though, and she watched the former Hawkeye capture the attention of not just the college basketball scene — but the sports world in general — in 2023 and 2024.
“I started hearing about Iowa because of Caitlin Clark,” Rodriguez said, per Leistikow.
Rodriguez’s recruitment as a transfer portal player came down to Iowa and Indiana. She ultimately felt the Hawkeyes gave her the best opportunity for growth, but who knows if she would have even considered Iowa had it not been for the popularity of Clark?
“I think it was time to go to a better place for me to grow and develop as a person and player,” Rodriguez said of her decision to transfer from UCF. “I think Iowa is the right place for me.”
Chalk it up as another win for the Hawkeyes, and, in a way, another win for Clark.
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