Repeat Final Four is no lock, but who would feel safe betting against Iowa?

DALLAS — Let’s say a women’s basketball scholarship opened at Iowa for the 2023-24 season and a proven Division I center was interested in transferring to the program.

What would out-of-eligibility All-Big Ten post player Monika Czinano tell the potential Hawkeye?

“This is a great program and you’d be really lucky to come to Iowa,” she said after her team’s 102-85 loss to LSU in the national championship. “Coach J (Jan Jensen) has done things for me that I didn’t even have belief in myself that I’d be able to do.”

Yes, especially with Caitlin Clark getting Czinano the ball in the spots Czinano was the most effective. Czinano came to Iowa raw as a player, but became polished enough to be first-team All-Big Ten the last two years.

If no such scholarship is freed up and the Hawkeyes go what with they have for next season? That’s OK, too. Because this team will still be the hottest ticket in Iowa City next winter, with more good stories to share.

For those who say Iowa is going to get back to the Final Four, that’s hope and not science. The era in which national-champion contenders could be counted on one hand with fingers left for other uses is over. The NCAA tourney is chock full o’ potholes.

Two weeks or so after it beat 10th-seed Georgia in a second-round game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Iowa’s coaches and players still talked about the difficulty of winning that game.

If a center even in the ballpark of Angel Reese’s or Czinano’s skill level somehow showed up for next season, that would be a difference-maker. Reese and Hawkeyes-wreckers Jasmine Carson and LaDazhia Williams weren’t at LSU a year ago. The transfer portal taketh away, but it also can really giveth.

Speculation aside, it will be quite a season ahead for Iowa no matter what. When you have Clark, you have the straw that stirs college basketball.

I’ve long told people I wanted to cover one Iowan sports star with swagger and attitude. We’re the state of Kurt Warner, Shawn Johnson, Zach Johnson. Humble, reverent, and no one opposing fans could ever jeer out of respect.

In other words, admirable human beings and competitors who don’t have a feather-ruffler in their makeup. Which is great. That’s genuinely who they are.

I just wanted one take-no-prisoners sports star from Iowa for my own selfish desires as a sports writer. Clark is that, in that she fills the bill of someone who feels and acts like the boss on the court with every dribble, every pass, every shot and every instinct. She can’t help but make you aware of it and doesn’t care.

That rubs some people wrong. Unless if she’s on your side. Because she backs it up, then she leaves her aggressive side on the court.

A 31.8-point average in the NCAA tournament and back-to-back 41-point games in the Elite Eight and Final Four? In the immortal words of Eleanor Shellstrop of “The Good Place,” holy forking shirt balls!

If this team doesn’t have a 100 percent retention rate for season tickets, someone in the public is throwing away a winning lottery ticket. Even if ticket-holders are moving to Sydney or Shanghai, they can retain them and sell them to others at rates that would pay for their relocation expenses.

Another season of Clark with seasoned teammates of note like Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall, and a young forward full of possibility in Hannah Stuelke? Yeah, that’ll work.

Every home game will be entertainment worthy of the Englert. Games against the better competition will be theater worthy of Hancher Auditorium.

All you ever really want as a fan is a team that can hang with anyone, has the capability of touching the sky, and is flat-out fun. That will again be the Hawkeye women.

Another Final Four run is so far from being a sure thing for Iowa. But would you feel comfortable betting against it?

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com