Jan Jensen Reveals What Went Wrong After Iowa’s Upset NCAA Elimination
The No. 2-seeded Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball team suffered the biggest upset defeat of the 2026 NCAA Tournament to this point on March 23, when they were beaten by the No. 10-seeded Virginia Cavaliers by a score of 83-75.
While this final score might suggest that this was not a close contest, it went to double overtime before Virginia pulled away. Regardless of how and when the Hawkeyes lost, very few expected them to come up short this early in the tournament after they appeared to be hitting their peak at the perfect time.
Jan Jensen Gets Honest About Iowa's Upset Loss to Virginia
Hawkeyes second-year head coach Jan Jensen spoke with the media after the game ended and assessed what went wrong for her squad in this upset defeat.
"This type of ending is definitely disappointing. But when I briefly looked at the box score, I don't believe we deserved to win it," Jansen said, per a YouTube video from the March Madness account. "Virginia, hats off... But with us, I believe we took 20 more shots, and we weren't able to win. I think we out-rebounded them... by eight.
"I mean, all the things that you should do, right? But when you look at categories that need to happen, the free throws, the shooting percentage, that hurts, because those things are a little bit more controllable," Jansen added.
The Hawkeyes had a 36.9% field goal percentage (compared to 44.4% for Virginia) and were 8 of 16 from free throw range.
When asked how Virginia was able to get back in the game during the fourth quarter and force overtime, Jensen added, "We missed some point-blank shots; we just missed a couple shots that I think could have sealed the deal. We took a couple of shots we shouldn't have at that time, too early. And they just made big plays. Usually, when you win in March, someone's gonna make big plays. And they made some really big plays."
She later said, "Eventually, our poor free-throw shooting was gonna catch up with you. We've gotten by, and I'd like the record to state we've worked on it... But missed free throws, ill-advised shots, missed really good shots, and a team that was very good at making big shots."
This will be a long offseason for Jensen and her Hawkeyes squad. The good news is that they a lot of quality players returning next season.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.
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