It felt like they were up against a WNBA team.
As the final horn and a couple of loud pops echoed around the cavernous Gainbridge Fieldhouse court, the Iowa Hawkeyes quickly and quietly exited into their locker room. The same way they entered, the same way they played.
At the same time, a downpour of blue and white confetti rained from the rafters. The colors of the UCLA Bruins. The colors of the Big Ten champions.
Some scores don’t tell the full picture of what happened in a game. UCLA 95, Iowa 41 certainly does.
While the Bruins are a Big Ten college basketball team on paper, in practice, they are a collection of soon-to-be professionals, getting their last licks in on the rest of the college basketball world.
Four of UCLA’s starting five are projected top 10 picks in the upcoming WNBA draft. It’s a roster that boasts Big Ten Player of the Year Lauren Betts, First Team All-Big Ten Kiki Rice, Second Team Gabriela Jaquez, and Gianna Kneepkens.
“Most of us have one or two go, but they have a lineup like that,” Iowa head coach Jan Jensen said.
UCLA didn’t just beat Iowa. Beat is when you lose by 10. A blow out is when you lose by 20. Brutalized is 30. There isn’t even a word to describe a 51 point loss.
And this was the championship game. In theory, between the two most deserving, battle tested squads.
UCLA’s quarterfinal against Washington on Friday was close for three quarters, until the Bruins pulled away to win 78-60. Their semifinal bout with Ohio State was stress free the entire way through, finishing 72-62 Bruins.
Iowa cruised to a 64-58 win in their quarterfinal game vs Illinois that only looked close in garbage time. Then on Saturday, the Hawkeyes put together one of their best fourth quarters of the year to pull away from Michigan 59-42.
“In that fourth quarter, to start it, I just had everybody do a zen moment,” Jensen recalled.
After the championship game opened with a Taylor Stremlow three pointer, the ensuing 13-0 Bruin run snapped the Hawkeye flow state. Iowa never recovered.
“If you let that margin get a little too great, you can never really ever shrink it,” Jensen said.
Against a team like UCLA, there is zero margin for error. Not when your basketball team contains nine freshmen and sophomores. Not when UCLA has eight seniors and grad students. Not when you shoot 21% from beyond the arc and UCLA shoots 50%.
Throughout the second half, a steady stream of Iowa fans made their way to the exits at each break. As they did, “Carver East” felt more and more like East L.A.
The Bruins never let up. They closed out the game making nine of their last nine baskets. Iowa went one for nine in the same stretch.
At the end, there were no tears as the Hawkeyes left the court. Just stunned silence. A reality check for a group with all the momentum in the world.
If the semifinal win against Michigan was the best game of the year for Iowa, the championship was by far the worst. The 51 point margin of victory was the biggest ever in a Big Ten Championship game. It was the largest margin of defeat for Iowa in 50 years.
“Disappointments and setbacks make losers bitter, but they make winners better,” Jensen said after the game.
There’s no doubt Iowa will be better when they host the first two games of their March Madness run in two weeks. When their run inevitably leads them into another national championship contender, though, is when they’ll need to prove it.
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