Who Is Addison Deal? The Highest-Ranked Recruit for Iowa Since Caitlin Clark

Caitlin Clark’s departure has posed some challenges for Iowa’s Basketball program. Nonetheless, head coach Lisa Bluder, with some noteworthy talents like Lucy Olsen, strengthened their roster. Another outstanding move made by the management was the inclusion of the Addison Deal in its recruiting class. 

Having reached the five-star status in October last year, Deal decided to be a part of the Hawkeyes over offers from 26 schools. Besides this, she becomes only the fourth Californian player after Lindsay Geoffroy (2001-04, Los Alamitos), Shannon Perry (1994-98, Carson), and, Laura Shawver (1975-79, San Francisco) to represent the Hawkeyes in Division I basketball.  Let’s dive in to see what this young prospect has to offer to this prestigious college basketball team.

Born in Irvine, California, Deal developed her basketball instincts at the Mater Dei High School in Southern California. Here she honed her skills further, which ultimately resulted in her ending up the 12th-ranked prospect in the 2025 class by ESPN.

Moreover, the 6 ft guard capped off her sophomore campaign despite suffering from an ankle injury in December last year. As it turns out, she made a tremendous comeback and capped off the season, averaging 15 points to go with 5.3 rebounds and 2.7 steals per game. Consequently, this resulted in the Monarchs clinching the Trinity League. They also made it to the Open Division semifinals of the CIF-SS along with the playoffs of the CIF Southern California Regionals.

However, that was not all from this super-talented baller. She also accomplished some resounding results in the AAU circuit. Seemingly, her contributions were instrumental in the U17 Cal Stars EYBL team’s dominant 52-7 record. Soon after, she becomes a part of the Davenport North’s Journey Houston in Iowa’s 2025 recruiting class.  Meanwhile, the list of the schools that were in pursuit of including Deal is pretty lengthy.

Which other programs were interested in recruiting Addison Deal?

Iowa’s arch-adversary, LSU, was the very first program that approached Deal in August 2021. Since then, she has been on the radar of multiple schools, including several national champions. This list has Stanford, Oregon, Arizona, Tennessee, Indiana, LSU, TCU, Baylor, Oregon State, Ohio State, Iowa State, Columbia, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Alabama, BYU, Utah, USC, California, Oklahoma, Harvard, Washington State, Vanderbilt, UCLA and North Carolina.

Fans will be hoping Addison Deal fulfills all her hype and expectations as a freshman. Filling in the shoes of someone like Caitlin Clark will obviously be challenging for her. But that’s what someone like her will face because she is the highest-rated Iowa recruit after Caitlin Clark.