By Mike Hlas

IOWA CITY — Three years ago, 16th-seed Fairleigh Dickinson beat No. 1-seed Purdue in the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

The difference between that and 15th-seed FDU’s 58-48 loss to No. 2-seed Iowa Saturday in the first round of the NCAA women’s tourney? The men played on a neutral court in Ohio. The women played before a crowd of 14,332 in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Because the game was as tight as it was — and the 10-point final margin doesn’t reflect how tight — never has a 15-seed ever had to battle crowd noise as loud and from as many throats as the Knights of New Jersey encountered this day.

Yet, the undersized team from the Northeast Conference stuck to the Hawkeyes like the humidity in Carver on this 88-degree March day stuck to everyone’s soul.

Play this game at a neutral site a few hundred miles from Iowa City, and who’s to say FDU doesn’t win? Don’t think Iowa Coach Jan Jensen wasn’t glad to be at home, sweet home.

“The one comment Jan made to me on the way out was ‘This is why we’ve got to get off the home courts. We’ve got to get neutral,’ ” said FDU Coach Stephanie Gaitley.

“That’s a pretty good statement to make when you’re the team that earned the home court.”

That’s the women’s tournament, though. The first two rounds are played at the homes of the top four seeds in each region because money matters. The women aren’t getting 14,332 fans at a neutral site like the men do. One day, maybe, probably. This isn’t it.

So, Iowa will again be the home team Monday when it meets a Virginia team that has beaten Arizona State by two points Thursday and downed Georgia in overtime here Saturday to get to the second round.

The Hawkeyes almost surely must play better Monday than Saturday. They have no choice, or 10th-seed Virginia will be playing in Sacramento at the Sweet 16 instead of Iowa.

But I come here not to criticize the Hawkeyes, but to praise the Knights. How they performed in the face of enormous disadvantages was exhilarating.

No. 15-seeds are 0-128 against 2-seeds in women’s tourney history. In Friday’s 2/15 clashes, the favorites won by 35 and 58 points. Three years ago, FDU played in a regular-season game here and lost to the Hawkeyes, 102-46.

This game started, and Madlena Gerke sank a 3-pointer to give the Knights a 3-2 lead. Then Iowa scored the next 16 points. Oh boy. This was going to be fulfilling only for those who bet on the favored Hawkeyes and gave the 31.5 points.

Except it wasn’t. FDU made four 3-pointers in the final 2:38 of the first quarter to pull within 20-17. The Hawkeyes proceeded to go the final 6:51 of the second quarter without a basket, and took a 27-26 lead to their dressing room.

Iowa scored the first eight points of the second half, and in under three minutes. Gaitley called a timeout, and the fans began to sweat only because of the overheated arena rather than the game itself. The ship had been righted.

Except it wasn’t. The Hawkeyes didn’t score in the third quarter after that timeout at the 7:19 mark, and their lead was a meager 35-33 entering the last 10 minutes.

“I can’t believe how many wide-open shots we missed,” said Jensen. “I don’t know when’s the last time we’ve gone 1-for-13 from threes.”

OK, but it wasn’t as if the Hawkeyes didn’t have dominance in two important stat-sheet areas. They shot 29 free throws to FDU’s two (and missed 12), and had 47 rebounds to the Knights’ 28.

Yet, the guests kept coming back. Iowa opened a lead of 44-36 with 7:51 left, and the Knights came back again, with a 7-0 run to get within a point. It was 48-46 midway through the fourth, and the crowd was on its feet and insanely loud in encouragement of the Hawkeyes. No one here wanted the season to end so prematurely.

Iowa didn’t pretend it could find a lot of ways to win. It went with one very safe and sane tactic, getting the ball to 6-foot-4 center Ava Heiden over and over. The Knights didn’t have anything close to a defense for it, and Heiden scored all of Iowa’s 12 points from that 7:51 marker until teammates made four free throws in the final 1:23.

The sound, fury and heat didn’t beat down Fairleigh Dickinson. Heiden did.

Seldom will you see a losing team in an NCAA tourney feel as upbeat and as good about itself as the Knights did on their way out of the arena and to their team room. As they should have.

They came, they battled to the end against long odds, and they wonderfully represented themselves, their school, the Northeast Conference, and underdogs in general.

“It was an amazing experience and I’m just really proud of how this team handled it,” said FDU point guard Ava Renninger, who played all 40 minutes with spirit. “We weren’t scared and we didn’t back down through four quarters.”

The Knights were down 18-3. It was them against the world. And they went on to outscore Iowa over the rest of the game and hold the Hawkeyes to a total of 15 points in the second and third quarters.

“I think the women’s game has grown enough that we can start to pursue doing that (playing the first week’s games at neutral sites),” Gaitley said. “This is a game that maybe we steal if it’s not on the home court.”

The tourney moves on, with Iowa now up against a Virginia team with size , and one of the nation’s best guards in Kymora Johnson.

Don’t assume the Hawkeyes won’t snap back Monday, however. Duke’s men had a really tough go against 16-seed Siena Thursday, but beat TCU 81-58 in Saturday’s second round.

In 2019, 15-seed Mercer was tied with Iowa here with four minutes left in an NCAA opener before the Hawkeyes scratched out a 66-61 win. They then won twice more in the tournament, by 16 and 18 points.

“It was just the tightness,” Jensen said of Saturday’s game, “and it reminded me of (the Mercer game). … So it happens.”

It just can’t happen again Monday. Otherwise, the Hawkeyes won’t get to experience the exquisite pleasure of Sacramento in springtime.