By Susan Harman

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Let’s talk brackets. Get your slide rules out or grab the nearest accounting major.

Iowa’s bracket, in which it’s the top seed, contains eight teams in the NCAA NET top 24. It includes seven teams ranked 24^th or better in the Associated Press poll. It includes the defending national champion, LSU. It includes last year’s runner-up, Iowa.

It also includes 2023 Elite 8 team Louisville and Sweet 16 teams Colorado and UCLA.

Also dropping in is Kansas State, a team Iowa played twice this season, splitting the two games.

And don’t forget West Virginia, No. 24 in the NET rankings and one of the best defensive teams in the Big 12, which looms in a second-round matchup on Monday, assuming the Mountaineers escape Princeton on Saturday.

As Iowa’s players and coaches said Sunday, there’s nothing they can do about this super-charged bracket but play each game they get as tough as they can.

“You need some things to go your way,” Iowa All American Caitlin Clark said generally about the path to the Final Four. “You shoot the ball well; you need a couple upsets in your region. It’s not anything our team shies away from. I don’t think people realize how hard it is to get into this tournament and find a lot of success.”

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Big Ten tournament revisited. Gabbie Marshall was asked to recount her critical block of Logan Nissley’s 3-point attempt with 28 seconds left in overtime in the Big Ten championship game.

“That block, I don’t know, I was kind of late on it because we were supposed to switch,” Marshall said. “So I’m glad I got there.”

Marshall was asked where that play ranks in her personal pantheon. “That’s up there for sure,” she said, grinning. “Because (Nissley) had just hit two threes in the overtime, so that’s up there for me.”

Her coach called it a great play.

“What’s so great about that play…how many times do you see a blocked shot and it goes out of bounds, and the other team gets the ball back,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “That happens over and over again. But her ability to block the shot and keep it inbounds, keep it in play and have possession of it, that’s what caps it off.”

Kate Martin sank some critical 3-pointers late in regulation and in the overtime. Each time she was wide open.

“I think they were so overly worried about Caitlin that it just left other people open,” Bluder said. “We didn’t take advantage of it enough earlier in the game. That’s my fault.”

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Positive thinking.  Bluder referred to that Nebraska comeback when discussing what several of her players (Marshall, Hannah Stuelke, Clark) have said at the end of the season about playing freely and without the anxiety of expectations.

“I just really believe in that power of thought and that you have to be confident, and they have to have no fear, and that’s how we won that game against Nebraska,” she said. “If we were eight points down with 2-1/2 minutes to go and worried about losing it, we would have lost that game. But they weren’t. They just played without fear for those last 2-1/2 minutes.”

And the next five.

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Spring break.  Following the Big Ten tournament coaches gave players Monday and Tuesday off. It was Iowa’s spring break and recovery was in order.

“I just feel like we were exhausted after last week,” Bluder said. “We played three games in less than 48 hours time. Unheard of. It’s really unsafe in my opinion. They were exhausted. Our staff was exhausted. We practiced really well Wednesday and Thursday, and I gave them Friday and Saturday off again.

“I wanted them to have a reset because (Sunday) we practiced and now it’s go. There’s no time for breaks. I think this time of year, having your legs under you is really, really important.”

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Game times.  Iowa plays host to a play-in game with Holy Cross (19-12) taking on the University of Tennessee-Martin (16-16) on Thursday at 8 p.m. The game will be televised by ESPN2.

The Hawkeyes play the winner of the play-in game on Saturday at 2 p.m. It will be televised by ABC. Iowa’s game is followed by Princeton (25-4) versus West Virginia (24-7) at 4:30 p.m., and it will be televised by ESPN2.

The winners will play Monday at a time to be announced.

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