In Final Four, Caitlin Clark and Iowa can break Hawkeyes’ streak of heartbreak

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IOWA CITY, Iowa — Second-seeded Iowa led top-seeded UNLV by 20 points in the 1987 men’s basketball Elite Eight.

The 1970 Iowa men’s basketball team still holds the Big Ten record for points per game (102.3) and led Jacksonville by one point with second remaining in their Sweet 16 matchup. Ronnie Lester was the best player in the 1980 Final Four, and the Hawkeyes point guard showed it in his first 10 minutes against Louisville.

Ronnie Harmon was an All-American running back who participated in the 1986 Rose Bowl against UCLA, and No. 3 Iowa still had a chance to win the national title. The undefeated Hawkeyes maintained a four-point lead over Michigan State after a punt with less than 10 minutes left in the 2015 Big Ten football title game.

With 11 seconds left in the 1993 Final Four, the Iowa women’s basketball team had one less possession than Ohio State in overtime. Megan Gustafson was the consensus national player of the year in 2019 heading into the Elite Eight against Baylor.

Across the three highest-profile sports in college athletics, Iowa’s high-profile story is one of heartbreak.

UNLV rallied to win by three points. Pembrook Burrows III’s bunt forged a 104-103 loss. Lester injured his knee after connecting on each shot attempt. Harmon fumbled four times and dropped an easy touchdown pass. Michigan State scored a touchdown with 27 seconds left on a 22-play drive. Laurie Aaron’s slip in the street with three seconds left doomed the women of 1993. In the Baylor explosion.

Every mention in Iowa makes people who remember those moments wince. To this day, those games are discussed with “what if” components. What if Lester was healthy? What would happen if Spartans running back LJ Scott didn’t stretch to cross the goal line with his extra foot? What if Harmon didn’t do it? This goes on and on.

That type of history weighs on the fan base and can bring down teams approaching the top of the mountain. This applies even to the current Iowa women’s basketball team. The Hawkeyes reached the 2023 NCAA title game only to lose 102-85 to LSU. Controversial refereeing calls and postgame taunts, combined with season-long hype, put enough pressure on the Hawkeyes to bow out at any point this season, and especially in the NCAA Tournament. Instead, they turned pressure into production and cruised to a 94-87 victory against LSU on Monday to advance to the Final Four.

𝗙𝗜𝗡𝗔𝗟 𝗙𝗢𝗨𝗥.#hawkeyes pic.twitter.com/jBLB0JKHm9

— Iowa Women’s Basketball (@IowaWBB) April 2, 2024

“Honestly, people thought we had a lot of pressure,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “People kept telling me, ‘This is very difficult, your season is going to be very difficult.’ She kept saying, ‘Why do we focus on the difficult? Why are we doing that?’

“Billie Jean King is one of my idols. She has a book, “Pressure is a Privilege.” I have used that book this year. She wrote that on a piece of paper; She is framed in my locker room for me. “We think pressure is a really good thing because it means you’ve done some pretty special things to have pressure on you.”

But not all teams absorb the situation in the same way. Expectations can put pressure and any crack can lead to flooding. That happened in 2010 to the Iowa football program. A year after an 11-2 record (the only two losses coming after their starting quarterback was injured), an Orange Bowl victory and a final ranking of No. 7, the Hawkeyes returned nearly every player to pivotal positions and began the season ranked No. 1. 8. Late in the season, injuries sapped depth and Iowa lost five games in which it led or score was tied in the last five minutes.

This women’s basketball team faced a similar path this year, only they overcame the spotlights, departures and injuries. Iowa lost multi-year starters Monika Czinano and McKenna Warnock but regained the core of its national runner-up team. Caitlin Clark entered the season as a bona fide superstar and the reigning consensus player of the year. Starting guards Gabbie Marshall and Kate Martin returned for another year due to the pandemic, while key reserves Hannah Stuelke, Molly Davis and Sydney Affolter were pushed into larger roles. But replacing Czinano was a big ask: She scored 2,413 points and was lethal in the post.

Stuelke is a power forward, but different from the stretch four that Warnock played or the true center that Czinano occupies. Iowa had a scholarship available and searched the transfer portal for a posting but couldn’t find the right one. Instead of betting on an unknown, Bluder stood firm on his roster amid the criticism.

“We were looking for specific things in the transfer portal. “We didn’t find what we were looking for,” Bluder said. “You have to be special to play at the University of Iowa. It’s not just a basketball factory. We don’t just choose the best basketball players. We choose the best basketball players who fit our culture. We don’t want to bring in someone who doesn’t fit into our culture.

“We wanted to make sure that if we brought someone in, it was someone who was an impact player, not just a role player, but an impact player right away. These numbers were somewhat limited. It gives us a little satisfaction that, yes, we’ve had enough.”

Bluder adjusted his lineup to run a four-guard offense instead of a traditional center. The dynamic Hawkeyes lead the country in scoring average and still rank 25th in rebounding margin. Then, in the regular season finale, Davis left with a serious knee injury. Affolter was the team’s primary reserve as a guard-forward combination and entered the starting lineup. The injury left Iowa without a true center or the four-guard lineup that led the Hawkeyes to the top spot.

However, while injuries crippled the 2010 football program and cost them the final moments of the game, this women’s team has won 10 straight games, including eight since Davis’ injury. They bonded with each other and their chemistry helped them overcome adversity. It held up when they battled a physical West Virginia team in the second round and when they faced last year’s tormentor on Monday in the Elite Eight.

“Honestly, it’s maturity,” Bluder said. “They’ve been there before, they know what it’s like. Once you know what it is like and what it requires, it is a little easier to follow the same recipe again.

“We’ve been in some tough situations. The leadership of Kate Martin, Caitlin and Gabbie has been extraordinary. So I really give those guys credit for that. But honestly, I think it would be unusual for us to not have a situation where the atmosphere is just crazy. I mean, that’s what we’re used to playing. So I think it would be unusual for us to not have that kind of craziness in one of our games.”

Iowa could stumble into “what if” territory like its predecessors. But by beating LSU with the eyes of the nation on them, the Hawkeyes freed themselves from the gut punches of the past. They may be the only Iowa team among previous editions of basketball and football that lived up to the sky-high expectations. And if they win two more games, these Hawkeyes will fly higher than all of them.

(Photo: Greg Fiume/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)