Iowa Women's Basketball living in the moment now, reflecting later

A week from now, a month from now, years from now, the Iowa Women’s Basketball team will be able to fully take in what it meant to not only make the Final Four, but then knock off a South Carolina team that had previously won 42 straight games. They will be able to fully reflect on the fact that their Iowa team was the first in program history to make an appearance in the national title game. It remains to be seen if they will be able to reflect on cutting down the nets and hoisting the trophy, however, their focus is fully on the LSU Tigers right now.

“People have asked me, how are you going to get them ready to play this game after last night? It really isn’t hard,” said head coach Lisa Bluder. “We’ve taken a business-like approach to this every single step of the way. Whether it’s the Big Ten Tournament or during the season after a big win like Indiana and going into the Big Ten tournament, whether it was beating Colorado, beating — it doesn’t matter. Like we turn the next page. It’s a veteran group, and they can handle it.”

“Last night we got to celebrate for about 20 minutes after the game until we had media stuff and then after that, it’s kind of moving on to LSU,” said McKenna Warnock. “Very similar to the Big Ten Tournament. It’s win and then you move on (to the next). It’s a switch mentality and I think that we do a great job of getting our mental state intact.”

Having experience with deep runs in the Big Ten Tournament are helpful. It gives the team experience with getting big wins against ranked teams and then having to wipe it away before the next one 24 hours later. However, last night’s win was not the same as a win over Maryland in Minneapolis. It was a win over 36-0 South Carolina. The Gamecocks had won 42 games in a row and were the unanimous #1 team all season. The Hawkeyes were just the fourth team to score 70+ on their defense and tied the most points scored on them all season. Iowa was an 11.5-point underdog, but none of it mattered, as they pulled off the 77-73 win.

“I think it helped that we didn’t get back home to the hotel until 12:30. So our only option was to go to sleep. We weren’t up just thinking about what we had done and things like that,” said Caitlin Clark. “Like Coach Bluder said, enjoy this. What you did is special. But at the same time, why not win one more? That’s what we’re here to do is win another basketball game.”

“It’s the National Championship, that not hard to wake up for. It’s not hard to give your heart and soul for. That’s exactly what this group is going to do, and that’s what we’ve done all year.”

As for the task ahead, the Hawkeyes are focused on trying to defeat LSU. While the Final Four is a little bit different from the Big Ten Tournament and the stakes are raised, this group has won back-to-back Big Ten titles. They’ve gone through really quick turnarounds and have experience with quickly turning their focus to the next opponent on the schedule.

“We played three back-to-back-to-back games against three great teams in the Big Ten Tournament. This is our third weekend of basketball in the NCAA Tournament,” said Clark. “We’re ready for this. We’ve been through challenges. We’re prepared.”

“I think this team has the maturity that has allowed us to be really good at flipping the page,” said Monika Czinano. “We had to do that a lot during the Big Ten Tournament, playing some phenomenal teams…this is our 93rd game together, we’ve gotten pretty good at moving on. It has been a focal point.”

As for when their accomplishments will finally start to set in? They all mentioned that it will likely be a week or so after the season has ended and they can finally reflect on the season as a whole.

“I think next week when you’re able to kind of decompress and get back to reality or realize how awesome (this is),” said Warnock. “We know this is an amazing experience, but you know we have a job and we want to win, so it’s just one step at a time right now.”

“I think overall, this whole moment, just the buzz it has created. I think I’ll really have a full appreciation for that once I’m done with this and can kind of look back at it,” said Czinano. “Right now, everybody would tell you we’re just fully in the moment. Total tunnel vision.”

Iowa and LSU will face off in the national title game tomorrow at 2:30pm CT. The game will be televised on ABC.