The Hyball: This Team Gives Us Everything

MINNEAPOLIS -- As college sports fans, we have an endless appetite for wanting.

We want the skinny beanpole to bulk up. We want the troublemaker to go home from the bar before midnight. We want the academically ineligible to just study harder.

We don't want any Iowa player to transfer. But we want every non-Iowa player to give it some thought.

We want inexperienced freshmen to play like they have a career's worth of experience. Think about how backwards that sounds. But we want it nonetheless.

But, somehow, this Iowa women's basketball team continues to give us everything we want. They're so good and routine with this, they give us things we didn't even know we wanted.

Gabbie Marshall began the season in a shooting slump. But in the Big Ten tournament, when it mattered most, she hit seven threes in the semifinal before another three (on 3/3 shooting) in the final. We wanted her to improve, and she did.

Hannah Stuelke seized the backup center minutes as a freshman, and I'll be damned if she doesn't make the most of them nearly every time out. What were we saying about playing with experience even if you don't have any? Done and done.

They give us that one extra rebound to make the stat line aesthetic:

We want the games to feel important. We want high stakes. We want to feel like we are part of something bigger. Sometimes, with want, we pitch in too.

But we don't always get what we want. Very few teams end seasons without some blemishes. But even when Iowa loses, they bounce right back. These Hawkeyes finished the regular season/conference tournament play losing twice in a row just once. The win streaks during this same span? 3, 2, 6, 8, 3, 4.

The six and eight pop, but the four at the end should stand out the most. Wins over the No. 14, No. 5, and No. 2 ranked teams in the country.

Iowa didn't just decisively win against Ohio State in the Big Ten tournament final -- they whooped that ass. They are assassins who smile on the job. Even sitting courtside on press row, it wasn't until after I got into my car for the drive back to Chicago where it hit the hardest: 105-72 -- in a championship game.

I consider myself a happy person but still strive do to anything with the joy Monika Czinano has when playing basketball — or even just being around basketball.

One of my favorite subtle moments covering this tournament was watching Iowa in a pregame drill. They had an individual warmup where an assistant coach dribbles at a player, who is then supposed to drop into a defensive stance for a second or two before sprinting past them and letting the person behind them in line do the same.

Every player in the drill tried, but it's pregame warmups, you know? There was some semblance of going through the motions/"let's get this over with." Not Monika. When the coach came at her, she started smiling and screaming "Night night!" at him, like "I know I'm only checking you momentarily, but I'm going to win this moment."

Smile beaming on her face, of course.

And if you can find joy in pregame, you can certainly find it on the podium. She was the last to take the stage after Iowa won the championship, naturally in her zone.

Can we be at all surprised when this joy is contagious?

And we've now reached the Caitlin Clark part. Watching her bomb threes, I couldn't help but be reminded of the iconic Jay-Z lyric "What more can I say to you? You've heard it all."

Something tells me Ms. Clark would not find this line relatable. We want her to put Iowa on the map? Check. Revolutionize the game? Sure. Be a role model for young boys and young girls alike?

She's aware of it, too. She's a point guard -- she can't help it. In press, she recalled the time on the clock and situational alignment of a particular play as Lisa Bluder suggested she might have a photographic memory. And that was only the second nicest thing she said about her:

Notice how you don't see the word "collegiate" anywhere in there? That was not an accident.

My favorite Clark play of the entire tournament was not a deep three. It was this pass:

I have played basketball my entire life with superior hoopers. In any given pickup game, I am probably the 8th, 9th, or 10th best player on the court. With zero shade to Molly Davis, a talented basketball player, sometimes the pass is bigger than you; the outcome, predetermined. When Clark launched it from the other three-point line, I can't imagine Molly's plan was "I'll one-hand this like Odell and put it in at the last possible second."

But that is Clark bringing greatness out of her teammates, who are more than happy to oblige.

Iowa left the Big Ten tournament with a +49 scoring margin and all of the pre-Madness momentum in the world.

But we want more. We always do. But what makes this team and this run so special is they absolutely do, too.

Bobby Loesch is a weekly contributor to Go Iowa Awesome. Find him on Twitter @bobbystompy, Instagram @bobbystompy, or email at bobbyloesch [at] gmail.com.