This past season, the Iowa women’s basketball team met its goal of making it back to the NCAA Tournament after a two-year absence. Unfortunately, the Hawkeyes were upset in the first round of the tournament by Creighton, leaving a bit of a sour taste in the players’ mouths.

But whatever disappointment might have been felt by the Hawkeyes can be put to rest with the realization that 86.4 percent of their points will return this fall.

The early exit from last year’s Big Dance will serve as motivation this season as the Hawkeyes set their sights on loftier goals.

“I think it’s important to tweak our mentality,” star post player Megan Gustafson said. “We’re an NCAA [Tournament] team, but we want to make it as far as we can. I think being able to execute in the conference season will really propel us to have a good run in the NCAA Tournament.”

Coming off a stellar season, Gustafson will be a big part of the Hawkeye effort to make a run. She led the nation in points per game with 25.7 and also in field-goal percentage at 67.1 percent, along with claiming numerous Iowa single-season records.

To cap off her impressive season, she was named the Big Ten Player of the Year by the media and garnered numerous All-American selections.

Yet, while she is sure to still be the focal point of Iowa’s game plan, the key to this year’s success might mean a less impressive statistical season for her.

“In her postseason meeting last year, I said, ‘We may not have you lead the country in scoring [this season], but we may be better because of it,’ ” head coach Lisa Bluder said.

The suggestion that less production from a team’s best player will lead to the team getting better might seem counterintuitive, but the logic behind Bluder wanting less from her best player comes from possibly having relied too much on Gustafson at the end of last season.

Down the stretch last season, Gustafson had an extremely impressive run, scoring 77 points in the Hawkeyes’ final two contests. The problem was Gustafson’s 77 points was 48 percent of the Hawkeyes points in the final two games.

Worse yet, the team (minus Gustafson) shot a woeful 33 percent from the floor during those two games.

Those aren’t numbers that Iowa wants to replicate, which is why the Hawkeyes want to get more production out of players not named Gustafson.

“We’re working on that this summer,” Bluder said. “We are implementing a second offense that’s more guard-oriented that really revolves around having one post on the floor instead of two posts on the floor.”

One player who could help pick up the slack next season could be Kathleen Doyle.

She finished last season scoring 11.1 points per game while dishing out 6.6 assists per game, which landed her a spot on the All-Big Ten second team.