Mike Hlas

Lisa Bluder has gone from driving a team van at St. Ambrose to piloting Iowa to Sunday’s national-championship game, with her feet on the ground the whole time.

National Player of the Year Caitlin Clark played like that and more as the Hawkeye women get their biggest win ever, over goliath South Carolina in national semifinal.

T-shirt-wearing Iowa fans stuffed a Ritz-Carlton ballroom five hours before their women’s basketball team’s Final Four game Friday.

Iowa coaches Lisa Bluder and Jan Jensen never stopped pounding away after arriving 23 years ago, and here they are in the national semifinals.

Cedar Rapids’ Keegan Murray has an NBA rookie record 188 3-pointers for a Sacramento Kings team headed for the playoffs for the first time since 2006.

Iowa’s national semifinal Friday against No. 1 South Carolina should produce a whopper of a rating for ESPN.

Up next for Iowa? The unbeaten, shot-blocking, rebounding steamrollers from South Carolina are likely to face the Hawkeyes Friday in the Final Four.

The 1993 Hawkeyes are among the biggest fans of the 2023 Iowa women’s basketball team that is a victory Sunday night from reaching the Final Four.

Iowa is two wins in Seattle from making a heck of a commotion back in its own state.

Greg McDermott, Jack Nunge and Tyger Campbell all went on from Eastern Iowa a lot of success.

Ulis was a junior starter, Ogundele a junior reserve in the season just ended.

Iowa’s shooting didn’t thaw soon enough, and its comeback came up short in an 83-75 NCAA first-round loss to Auburn.

Iowa fell behind by 17 in the second half, pulled within four, but then Auburn pulled away again for an 83-75 win in the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Auburn plays Iowa Thursday in the heart of Tigers country, but that doesn’t mean everyone here will be in its corner. Alabama is playing in the Thursday afternoon session here

Former Iowa assistant coach Bruce Pearl has won a lot and had a three-year exile from coaching. Here he is 31 years after leaving Iowa, facing the Hawkeyes as Auburn head coach in the NCAA tournament Thursday.