Mike Hlas

While many in America seethed at the foul call on Connecticut’s Aaliyah Edwards with 3.9 seconds left, the Hawkeyes enjoyed a comeback win and a second-straight berth in the national-championship contest.

One pair of basketball-loving friends has never even been to Iowa. It just doesn’t matter when comes to rooting for Caitlin Clark and the Hawkeyes.

Iowa lost two starters, added no transfers, and didn’t regress a bit in powering its way to a second-straight Final Four.

Luka Garza has been persistent in his quest to get a standard NBA playing contract, and Thursday was the day. The Minnesota Timberwolves converted the former Iowa National Player of the Year’s two-way deal to a standard contract.

Here are some random notes from the road — literally the road — as Iowa’s NCAA women’s basketball tournament journey settles into Cleveland after several days in Albany, N.Y.

Here are a few links to good stories and essays about Caitlin Clark’s performance Monday night in Iowa’s NCAA tournament regional final win over LSU. The consensus seemed to be this: Caitlin Clark was quite good.

It’s a second-straight Final Four for Iowa, with a thorough vanquishing of 2023 conqueror LSU.

Name a team stat, and probably either LSU or Iowa are high up the NCAA women’s basketball national charts.

If you think the LSU women’s basketball players are disrespectful or dismissive of Iowa, you’ve only seen them from far away.

Caitlin Clark brushed off having two first-half fouls with no fear, and the Iowa Hawkeyes shuffled off the Colorado Buffaloes, 89-68, behind her 29 points and 15 assists.

Every word and gesture scrutinized, a $5 million offer to play 10 games against men — every day is bringing greater attention on Caitlin Clark as Iowa proceeds in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

Albany gets Iowa, South Carolina and LSU, a lot of women’s basketball star power to stuff into a small tournament venue.

Four-year Iowa men’s basketball player Tony Perkins has entered the NCAA transfer portal. Perkins scored 1,175 career points and started 81 games as a Hawkeye, leading the team in assists and steals this season

Sydney Affolter made Iowa’s only basket of the fourth quarter Monday night against West Virginia’s ruthless defense. The biggest basket of the game is what it was.

The Hawkeyes have their hands full in a second-round NCAA tourney game against West Virginia. Which probably is just the way Clark wants it.