By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

Iowa’s women’s basketball team had a shot at being No. 1 in the Associated Press poll on Monday after a 3-0 opening week that included a neutral-court win over No. 8 Virginia Tech.

The thought, though, was something coach Lisa Bluder wasn’t concerned about after the then-No. 3 Hawkeyes won at Northern Iowa 94-53 on Sunday.

“We’ll see,” Bluder said. “It really doesn’t matter if we are or not. It’s a long year. What are we this week? Three? That’s darn good too.”

“I think it was a good (week), it gets you off on the right note,” guard Caitlin Clark said. “But our group is mature enough to know this is just the starting block.”

The Hawkeyes, though, didn’t get to the top. They came in at No. 2 in the poll on Monday behind South Carolina, which went 2-0 against ranked teams Notre Dame and Maryland.

South Carolina got 23 first-place votes, while Iowa received 13.

Iowa was No. 2 in the final AP poll last season. The Hawkeyes have spent 14 weeks at No. 2 in the poll’s history.

CLARK HONORED: Clark, not surprisingly, was named the Big Ten women’s basketball player of the week.

Clark averaged 32 points, nine assists and 8.3 rebounds in Iowa’s three games last week. She recorded the 12th triple-double of her career in Sunday’s game, finishing with 24 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds, joining Sabrina Ionescu as the only women’s players in NCAA Division I history to have at least one triple-double in four seasons.

Clark also became Iowa’s all-time leading scorer with 2,813 points, passing the mark of 2,804 set by Megan Gustafson from 2015-19.

It is the 19th Big Ten weekly honor for Clark, tied for second-most in the conference’s history.

Photo: Iowa’s Caitlin Clark shoots during Sunday’s game at Northern Iowa. (Brian Ray/hawkeyesports.com)