By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa women’s basketball team, which has finished as the NCAA runner-up in each of the past two seasons, is way above earning or needing moral victories.

But it’s not above earning praise, even after a gut-wrenching loss.

Iowa fell short against third-ranked UCLA on Sunday, losing 67-65 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, but Jan Jensen’s squad showed once again that it can compete with the best teams in the country.

Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that Iowa is now 8-8 in Big Ten play, including 0-4 in conference games decided by three points or less, and likely headed to a lower division finish in conference play with just two games left at Michigan on Wednesday and at home against Wisconsin next Sunday.

Iowa’s performance against UCLA is reason for optimism, though, as Iowa moves closer to postseason play without Caitlin Clark leading the way for for the first time since 2019.

Iowa could probably lose its final two Big Ten regular-season games, and its first game in the Big Ten Tournament, and still make the NCAA Tournament.

It is widely believed that even finishing 8-10 in conference play still would be enough for Iowa to receive an invitation to the dance in Jensen’s first season as head coach.

Sunday’s loss hurt Iowa’s record more than its postseason stock.

UCLA, which improved to 26-1 overall and 14-1 in the Big Ten, was fortunate to escape with a win, and to say that UCLA head coach Cori Close was impressed with Iowa’s performance would be an understatement.

“It came down to defense, but I’ve got to give so much credit, I just told Jan, you are such a good coach,” Close said on the Peacock post-game interview. “They executed, and if you make one mistake, they know who they are. And I just thought they were a heck of a team. They really made us work for everything.”

Close would go on to say that the game shifted when her team started taking pride in its defense in the fourth quarter.

UCLA had to rely on its defense because its offense, other than 6-foot-7 center Lauren Betts, was pretty ordinary.

Betts scored 22 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, but her teammates only shot a combined 5-of-25 from 3-point range, and UCLA just 42.1 percent overall from the field.

UCLA also had 14 turnovers, while Iowa only had eight.

This was close and competitive game in every sense of the word.

Iowa graduate guard Lucy Olsen showed incredible poise and toughness when she made three straight free throws to even the score at 65 with six seconds remaining.

Olsen shot poorly from the field, making just 5-of-21 field-goal attempts.

But when her team needed her at crunch time, she rose to the occasion.

But then UCLA would go on to win the game on two free throws with three seconds remaining.

The free throws came from a foul on Lucy Olsen that was questionable to say the least because its appeared that Olsen tripped over the UCLA player that was setting a screen before committing what was called a foul.

Iowa had one last chance, but Addi OGrady’s shot from near the top of the key fell short of the basket.

Iowa was trying to pull off a sweep of the Big Ten’s two powerhouse teams from Los Angeles as Sunday’s game was played exactly three weeks after Iowa upset USC 76-69 on Feb. 2 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Hardly anybody besides the Iowa players and coaches probably gave the Hawkeyes any chance of beating USC and UCLA, and yet, Jensen and her cohorts nearly had a sweep.

And if USC and UCLA are about as good as it gets this season, then Iowa could be a tough out in postseason play.

The same Iowa team that lost five straight Big Ten games in January is now consistently performing at a much higher level on both ends.

It has been a while since Iowa had a really bad performance.

Teams aren’t always going to shoot well, as was the case for Iowa in Sunday’s loss.

But they find other ways to win, or at least to be competitive when shots aren’t falling.

And it starts with hustle and execution.

This Iowa team has a tremendous amount of pride, and enough talent to play with anybody on a good day.

It also has one of the best fans bases in college basketball, men or women, and that was on display again Sunday with Carver-Hawkeye Arena packed and energized as usual when the Iowa women play.

So, again, Sunday’s loss wasn’t a moral victory for Iowa.

It was just more proof that Iowa is moving in the right direction under its new leadership.