Sights and sounds: Iowa reacts to NCAA Tournament bid

UCLA, who the Hawkeyes took to the wire in a nail biting 67-65 loss at home Feb. 23, were the first to be announced as the overall No. 1 seed. As this was announced, Iowa head coach Jan Jensen had an ‘almost had ’em’ look on her face. 

Many predictions put the Hawkeyes anywhere from a five to seven seed after winning 11 of their last 13 games for a 22-10 overall record. Some brackets had them in LSU’s Baton Rouge opening round, while others had them in Duke’s Durham, N.C., pod. Would they play George Mason or Fairfield in the first round? Those were a few of the teams mentioned leading up to selection time. 

Players, dressed in matching grey Hawkeye sweatsuits, let out sighs as familiar foes such as Michigan, Iowa State, Michigan State and Nebraska all learned their fate. 

Knowing surely they would be in the last bracket announced, tension was eased a bit. A few players even sang along to the Burger King commercial before the final segment of the show aired. 

USC, the team they defeated 76-69 on the day Caitlin Clark’s jersey was retired, was announced as the top seed in the Spokane Region. Kansas State got the final fifth seed to match up with 12-seed Fairfield. 

Cheers erupted when Iowa was finally announced as the sixth seed to play against 11-seed Murray State, who had earlier won the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament with a convincing 83-62 win over Belmont. The Hawkeyes would not be headed to the East Coast as many predicted — they will play their first round in relatively closer Norman, Okla., just a 10-hour drive away. 

“My heart was beating so hard every time,” senior guard Sydney Affolter told reporters after the selection show. “The anticipation definitely built up, but just hearing our name called … this is the fourth year I have been on an Iowa team to make the NCAA Tournament. It is really exciting. I am really grateful to do it with this group.”

Senior guard Lucy Olsen, who transferred to Iowa from Villanova this season, jumped up and gave Jensen a hug when she heard Iowa’s name called. 

“I am like, ‘Can they just call our name already?’” Olsen told reporters. “But, it was kind of fun trying to figure out like, oh, they have already been called, so we are not there. So, who is next? Who is left? And, sitting next to coach Jan, she is always trying to figure it out, too. That was fun to get that insight. Very stressful, though … I was sweating. My face was red. My heart was beating. I’m glad it is over.”

Iowa’s NCAA Tournament journey will look a lot different than it has for the past few years. The last time Iowa was not a first-round host was 2018, when the sixth-seeded Hawkeyes fell 76-79 to No. 11 Creighton in the first round at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles. The next season, Iowa, then a No. 2 seed, hosted the first two rounds, defeating both Mercer and Missouri on their way to an Elite Eight finish before falling to eventual national champions Baylor, a team coached by Kim Mulkey. 

Although the Hawkeyes were predicted to host in 2020, the tournament was cancelled due to the COVID-10 pandemic. The pandemic was also the reason the 2021 tournament was held in a single location at San Antonio, Texas, with limited attendance. 

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Once the fans were allowed back in the stands (Caitlin Clark’s sophomore year), the Hawkeyes hosted the first round three years straight in a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The 2022 season ended like 2018 — with a loss to Creighton. This time it was 64-62 in the second round in front of a stunned and heartbroken home crowd.  

The Hawkeyes took care of business at home in the first two rounds in 2023, and advanced to their first Final Four since 1993 before falling to LSU in last year’s National Championship. Last season’s selection show had a different tension to it than this year’s, as Iowa was announced as a No. 1 seed, on their way to their second straight Final Four and National Championship game, before falling to South Carolina. 

In her first year as head coach, Jensen — who took over the program this season after 24 years as Lisa Bluder’s assistant — knew the team would have a different path after Clark and three other regular starters graduated. 

And though the Hawkeyes started the season 12-2, they hit a five-game losing skid that raised some questions as to whether or not they would make the NCAA tournament at all. But Jensen and the coaching staff worked to keep the team on an even keel.

“We just really had to keep them steady,” Jensen told reporters Sunday night. “I talked a lot about being right here. Because if they started to listen to not just media, not just fans, not social media, but you can be in your own orbits if you start to get splintered. … We just knew that we were closer than we were farther. And when we broke it, boy, then we could put ourselves in a position … and then a lot of great things started to happen.”

While she obviously would have liked to be in position to host the first rounds again, Jensen is proud of how her team fought through adversity this year. 

“With everything that we lost, with everything that these players had to manage … it’s one thing when you talk about it, it’s one thing when we all started it, but it’s another thing to go through it,” she said. “And when you’re going through it, and you’re trying to lead, you’re trying to be a transfer coming in, like Lucy, you’re trying to be the kids that have been role players yet started, but now be the ones. I mean, managing that, and then all the expectations. I believe that this team has won in so many ways already to get to this point.” 

Iowa will face Murray State at 11 a.m. on Saturday in Norman, Okla. The winner of that game will advance to the second round on Monday to face the winner of No. 3 Oklahoma and No. 14 Florida Gulf Coast.

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