Holy Cross holds heads high after gritty NCAA Tournament showing

But they weren’t tears of disappointment. Rather, she was overcome with emotion by the way her mid-major team played with heart against the first-seed Hawkeyes on their home court in front of more than 14,000 raucous fans.

 “Coming out of the locker room, I promised the girls I would hold it together, but I am unbelievably proud of them on this stage, to play the way that we played against a perennial power, the face of women’s basketball right now. I just can’t put into words how proud I am of our fight, how we competed,” she told reporters. “We just stuck to the game plan and we were in it. I really felt we were in it for the first half, for sure, and we were trying to take it from them.”

At the end of the first quarter the Crusaders were neck-and-neck with the high-flying Hawkeyes, trailing by only two, 23-21. Holy Cross’ stingy defense visibly frustrated Iowa’s superstar guard Caitlin Clark, holding her to just one field goal and causing her to turn the ball over five times. 

“I was standing there just kind of in awe of what we were doing consistently,” Magarity said. “We were just doing a great job on her, giving her ball pressure. I thought we were in the gaps, just making her feel really frustrated, not being able to really see her vision of being able to make the passes that she’s normally able to make.”

“We just seem to always find a way defensively and we’ve been here before,” she continued. “We have a lot of really great guards in the Patriot League, and a lot of our game plans are very similar to what we had to do with Caitlin, so I think that helped give us a little bit of confidence going into today. But to actually do it was very impressive. I’m really proud of the team.”

Early in the second quarter, a foul by Holy Cross senior guard Bronagh Power-Cassidy on Clark was upgraded to an intentional foul after the official review showed that Power-Cassidy’s left hand hit Clark’s face.

“It was totally unintentional. I broke my hand in our playoff game in our final, and so when I was moving, I was just very conscious of keeping it out of too much contact and unfortunately it just happened that way,” Power-Cassidy told reporters. “I would like to apologize. It was not intentional at all, and she was a great sport about understanding that. I know it always looks terrible if someone gets hit in the face. It really was unintentional. I was trying to not get too much contact on my hand. It was unfortunate the way things worked out.”

Clark acknowledged it was an accident and that she is fine.

“It was just kind of a stinger to the nose. I was lucky it wasn’t anything worse than that,” she told reporters. “She didn’t do that on purpose. She came up and said, ‘Sorry.’ But honestly, I’m totally OK.”

Magarity marveled at the way Power-Cassidy was able to play at a high level the past three games with a broken hand. The Ireland native finished with 21 points and eight rebounds in the Patriot League championship last Sunday on her way to being named the tournament MVP. In the NCAA Tournament play-in game Thursday at Carver-Hawkeye Area, she scored 15 points in the Crusaders’ dominating 72-45 win over University of Tennessee–Martin. 

“She broke her hand in the [Patriot League] championship game, so we haven’t been able to really say anything about that for a lot of reasons, but it’s just another reason why she is just the most incredible player I have ever coached,” Magarity said after Saturday’s game. “It happened in the first quarter of the championship game. She just landed on it funny and she was able to, thankfully, play on it. Honestly, that is why I think it looked as bad as it did. She just didn’t want to get it hit, but I’m glad Caitlin’s OK.”

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Feeling right at home

After Holy Cross secured its NCAA Tournament bid last Sunday with a 61-55 victory over Boston University in the Patriot League championship, the team learned it would be facing UT-Martin in a 16-seed play-in game Thursday in Iowa City. 

The team wasted no time flying out of Boston, arriving in Iowa on Tuesday to become acclimated with Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

“We’ve been able to practice here a few days,” Magarity said Saturday. “We obviously played and shot the ball really well the other night and we were able to win a game on this court. That really helped us with how comfortable we were today.”

In her opening statement after Saturday’s game, Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder praised Holy Cross for its feisty performance. 

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“I just want to congratulate Maureen and Holy Cross on a really great season,” Bluder said. “They’ve spent a lot of time here in Carver. They’ve spent as much time in Carver this week as we have, and I think they have really enjoyed their time in Iowa City. They’re just a really tremendous group of people. I thought they were very fundamentally sound.”

The Crusaders made their second straight NCAA Tournament appearance after winning back-to-back Patriot League championships. Thursday night’s win over UT-Martin marked just the second NCAA Tournament victory in program history and the first since 1991. 

“What a great host Iowa has been as a city, as a whole, as a university, has just been so gracious. The hospitality has been amazing,”  Magarity said. “Everybody really made extra time for us and really made us feel welcome. It’s really just made this truly a once-in-a-lifetime memory, and I will forever be really grateful.”

Strong send-off for senior class

Saturday’s game marked the last game for Holy Cross seniors, who are all starters — guards Power-Cassidy and Cara McCormack, and forwards Janelle Allen and Callie Wright. 

“I’m just obviously so proud and to do it with the four seniors that we have, they’ve just had so many milestones at Holy Cross and will go down as one of the all-time great senior classes in the history of Holy Cross women’s basketball. I’m really sad to see it come to an end, but I’m just so grateful for their effort today,” Magarity said. 

The Crusaders were led by Power-Cassidy’s 19 points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals, followed by Allen with 18 points, three boards and two assists. After scoring 23 points on Thursday, McCormack had 11 points, five rebounds and two steals against Iowa, while Wright pulled down a team-high seven rebounds. 

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Power-Cassidy said the team was not intimidated by Iowa or its throng of fans, but rather ready to play its style of basketball on a big stage. 

“One thing the coaches always tell us is just to be present and to be in the moment, but we just worked so hard to get to this point and the season we had was never easy, so I think we just never took anything for granted and at the end of the day, we’ve played basketball our whole lives,” she said. “I think we just wanted to be in the moment and give everything we had every shot because they’re a phenomenal team, but we just wanted to go out playing our style of basketball. We celebrate each other. We enjoy playing with one another so I think that was the most important thing, and just play fearlessly, and I think we do that as a team, regardless of stage.”

McCormack agreed that they weren’t there just to show up, but to compete. 

“The game was really special, and I think Iowa felt that we were competing with them as well,” she said. “That is what our team does. We never give up. We have pride in everything we do and how we play. Nobody was looking to come in here and give up. Every quarter we felt we were in the game and doing what we had to do. We were getting great shots, but theirs happened to fall more.”

Allen, whose brother, Brian Allen, plays on the Iowa football team, was also not intimidated by the Hawkeyes or its fans. 

“I think today, despite the circumstances and despite the end score, we did phenomenal and I’m very proud of how we played today,” she said. “I don’t think we have any regrets in how we played or how things turned out, but I don’t think there’s any reason to come out intimidated.”

“Our fans have been very ride-or-die since our very first game. Since the very first time we put on these jerseys, our fans have been there for us through and through,” she added. “Of course, the Iowa fans cheer, but that kind of becomes white noise. Whenever we put the ball in the basket, you looked over and our little section of purple was cheering for us with smiles, so it kept us going and it put smiles on our faces.”

Holy Cross ended the season 21-13 overall and 11-7 in the Patriot League. Iowa will face West Virginia, which beat Princeton 63-53 Saturday, in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at 7 p.m. CT Monday in Iowa City.