LSU 102, Iowa 85: When The Luck Runs Out
DALLAS — Losing in a championship game is a special kind of heartbreak.
There's the recognition that nearly every other tourney team didn't get this far — the vast majority not even close — and it's also the best tournament showing in Iowa women's basketball history (and only matched by the men in 1956).
The Final Four is, in and of itself, a goal unto itself. Winning even one game there, much less against the undisputed best team in the nation, is the sort of outcome nearly every college basketball player will go their whole career without tasting.
And yet, when that confetti falls and it's for someone else — when the dream won't come any closer than 40 minutes away — there's no rationalizing that heartache away.
LSU blitzed Iowa early and kept pace through the second half for a 102-85 victory in the NCAA National Championship on Sunday, dashing the hopes of an Iowa program and fanbase that had reached new heights this season.
In defeat, the Hawkeyes made special note of departing seniors Monika Czinano and McKenna Warnock, two-fifths of this Iowa lineup that had started 92 games together — and who both fouled out in the fourth quarter, after just 20 and 25 minutes of court time, respectively.
"I feel terrible for our seniors," said Kate Martin after the loss. "They've had great careers, but obviously we wanted to get the win for them."
And when the inevitability of the loss sank in on Sunday, the emotions were impossible to escape.
"Seeing the heartbreak is really hard," said Addison O'Grady. "We all love each other and we know how much work it took to get here, and I just think we won't lose that ever."
While few Hawkeyes pointed at the officiating for affecting the progression of the game — the referees weren't shooting the three-pointers for the Tigers, after all — the team's most prominent voices made sure to lament the barrage of calls that ultimately disqualified both seniors.
"I'm just bummed for McKenna and Monika," said Caitlin Clark. "They both had to end their career on the bench, and it's not something I really thought they deserved."
Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder agreed, noting that Clark's technical foul pushing her from three fouls to four "completely" changed the Hawkeyes' game plan.
"We're playing handcuffed, right?" Bluder said. "We're playing with three people that have four fouls. Monika Czinano plays half a game today. She's the one of the best shooters in America, and she plays 20 minutes. I just feel bad for my two seniors having to go out of this game without being able to be on the floor."
Winning the six consecutive games of the NCAA Tournament and taking home the crown must, at some point, involve some luck. That luck doesn't invalidate a win or loss; it's part of basketball. And as associate head coach Jan Jensen noted, Iowa had that luck that guides a team to a championship until it didn't:
"When you have years like this, every coach will tell you, even the Geno Auriemmas, you gotta have breaks that go your way. And we had a lot to get here. Today, I don't think we got one."
Accordingly, Iowa's players didn't take LSU's suddenly volcanic three-point shooting as anything but a reason to tip their hat:
"They played really well," Kate Martin said. "They made a lot of shots. I mean, they even banked in a few threes."
"We kind of told ourselves, maybe they'll cool off in the second half, but you're going to have games where the other team's just hitting everything," said Gabbie Marshall. "Credit to them — they're a great team, very talented."
The script of Sunday's game was, unfortunately, slightly familiar: star player gets in early foul trouble, then the opposing bench torches Iowa from deep until there's a hole too big to climb out of in the second half.
That was the case in Iowa's trip to Maryland, the Hawkeyes' last loss before a nine-game winning streak brought them a Big Ten Tournament Championship and to the precipice of a national title.
In that game, the Terrapins had demoralized the Hawkeyes by halftime, leading by 18, and Maryland cruised to a 28-point victory with no sweat broken in the second half.
Here, with a title on the line, the Hawkeyes fought back for as long as there was still time on the clock.
"We decided this could go one of two ways in the locker room," said Clark. "And that just speaks to this team that nobody was complaining, nobody was pouting. It was just a constant belief about what we could do."
And what Iowa did was a 12-0 run in the third quarter, taking a 21-point deficit back down to single digits in less than two minutes of game time and keeping the LSU celebration at bay.
"Having that mentality that we were never out of the game was kind of what pushed that run to get down to 7," Marshall said. "But ultimately they were hot, they stayed hot the entire game."
Indeed, while Iowa's third-quarter surge coincided with LSU's shooting cooling off (6-18 FG), any hope of a Hawkeye comeback was extinguished in the fourth quarter when the Tigers made 11 of 16 attempts, including a 6-6, 15-point final quarter from Alexis Morris to leave the Hawkeyes no real path to come back, no matter their best efforts.
But the best efforts were there.
"I'm really, really proud of our fight," Warnock said. "I didn't want anyone to see me cry (after fouling out). I still wanted to be there for those girls. There was still a minute-something left in the game, and I knew the job wasn't done. I knew they were still fighting and I wanted to be there for them."
"I think we fought until the final buzzer and we left it all on the court," Martin said. "I'm proud of this team and how we fought today."
The team — sans seniors — will reconvene in a couple weeks and begin the offseason. Martin and Marshall will return with eligibility exemptions for the COVID year. The Hawkeye program will welcome talented freshman guard Kennise Johnson-Etienne, while center commit Ava Jones continues her recovery from being struck by a car in a 2022 accident that her father did not survive. Transfer guard Kylie Feuerbach will likely be healthy after suffering an ACL tear in August 2022 that cost her the 2022-23 season.
With Clark, the two returning seniors and a maturing group of young players taking a step forward, the Hawkeyes will be very good next year. With some good health and good fortune, another run like this is hardly out of the question.
For the coaches, though, this season's team will always be special.
"To think of the locker room next year without Monica and McKenna being there, it's almost too much right now to think about," Bluder said. I want to coach them again. I wish I could coach them again tomorrow."
"Monika Czinano is just the sweetest kid," said Jensen. "McKenna, just a dog, warrior mentality. They all brought it every day, succinctly. They all brought it every day, mentally and physically, and as a coach, those teams are so rare."
"You can get other teams there, but it takes a whole lot more work," Jensen continued. "These girls, you know, we work for sure. But they were a blast."
"I keep saying it all the time, but we truly are a family," Czinano said. "They built something truly special there. I wouldn't have wanted to do this anywhere else, with any other team, with any other group of people."