By Susan Harman

IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa women’s basketball team earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA women’s basketball championship field Sunday, only the second one in school history, but its path will be anything but smooth.

ESPN analyst and former Purdue coach Carolyn Peck called Iowa’s region a “murderer’s row” of some of the top teams in the nation.

“Holy cow this region is tough,” ESPN analyst and Hall of Famer Rebecca Lobo added.

But first things first. Iowa will play Saturday at 2 p.m. against the winner of a First-Four game Thursday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena between Holy Cross (19-12) and Tennessee-Martin (16-16). Times have not been announced.

Holy Cross won the Patriot League tournament Sunday, and UT-Martin was the Ohio Valley champ by default. The Skyhawks lost in the OVC tournament championship game to Southern Indiana, but Southern Indiana was ineligible because this was its first season moving up to Division I.

The other two teams in Iowa City are the 8 and 9 seeds, West Virginia (24-7) of the Big 12 and Ivy League champ Princeton (25-4). They will meet at 8 p.m. on Thursday. If Iowa should win its first game it plays the winner of the West Virginia-Princeton game on Monday.

The region is littered with teams with whom Iowa is familiar: Colorado, Drake, Kansas State, Louisville, LSU and Creighton. Those names represent some triumphs and horrors for Hawkeye teams past.

“I was a bit surprised when Kansas State (appeared on the bracket) just because I’ve always heard that they don’t like you to play against somebody so early that you’ve already played, and we played them twice,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “But definitely a lot of familiar faces.”

“There’s a lot of parity in college basketball these days,” Kate Martin said. “We knew it wasn’t going to be an easy path, and we’re excited for what’s ahead. And it’s going to make it that much sweeter. But yeah, we have a really tough side of the bracket, and that’s good. That’s exciting.”

Gabbie Marshall thought the familiarity with many of the potential opponents could be an advantage.

“We will know the players on the team pretty well; we might have some scouts still on these teams,” she said.

Caitlin Clark acknowledged the NCAA selection committee’s tough choices. “There’s only so much movement the committee can do from a seeding standpoint,” she said.

She noted that Iowa has memories of success against several of those teams, Colorado and Louisville in last year’s tournament and Drake during the season.

“At the end of the day it doesn’t matter because you’re only going to play X number of those because the others get eliminated,” Clark said. “More than anything you’ve got to show up every single night, and our team should know that better than just about anybody in the country with the experience we have.”

ESPN broadcast the Iowa players’ reactions when Iowa was announced as a top seed. They jumped up off their chairs and started clapping and cheering.

“A 1 seed, obviously it doesn’t matter a whole lot, but it’s just really cool to see that 1 by our name,” Martin said.

“There’s something that I just think there’s credit to our program; it establishes us as one of the very best teams in America, and so it’s just a credit to our recognition,” Bluder said about the top seed. “But it’s just a number. We got to the championship game with a No. 2 seed last year.”

Iowa is in the Albany, N.Y., region to which they would go if they win two games in Iowa City. The Sweet 16 game is on March 30 and the quarterfinal is April 1. The other top seeds were South Carolina, Southern California and Texas.

Coaches, being coaches, had a different reaction to the ‘old home week’ look of Iowa’s bracket.

“I like a new challenge. I like going against teams that we haven’t seen before,” Bluder said. “They haven’t seen Caitlin play, and until you’ve gone against Caitlin you don’t know how good she is. I don’t think you realize how fast we play. But teams that we’ve already played they know that, so that’s why I like to play against new teams, different teams.”

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Molly Davis update.  Molly Davis was off the crutches she had in Minneapolis while watching the team win the Big Ten tournament.

“She’s made progress, definitely,” Associate head coach Jan Jensen said. “I just think we’ve got a ways to go still. You’ve got to get the swelling down. But you’re seeing her walking.”

Davis injured her knee cap in the Ohio State game and has been undergoing physical therapy since.
“She’s still limping, not a good sign,” Bluder said. I was hoping she’d be further along by now than she is. I’m not saying that she will or won’t play this weekend. I don’t know.”