By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – On a day when the Iowa women’s basketball team honored its previous head coach for helping to lift the program to elite status, fans also witnessed what almost became one of the greatest comebacks in program history.

Almost.

Iowa trimmed a 21-point halftime deficit to five points twice in the fourth quarter, but that was as close as Iowa would get as No. 8 Maryland hung on for a 74-66 victory before a raucous sellout crowd on Sunday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

“You can’t really do what we did, even if Maryland was on their heels if they didn’t really dig in and believe it, too. And that’s why they’re fun to coach,” first-year Iowa head coach Jan Jensen said of her players. “It wasn’t so fun at the beginning when we were looking like we weren’t prepared.

“But I do like that resilience. And that’s the thing, if you handle a loss right, it can really be helpful. And I’m just trying to make sure that we handle it right, me included. And I think if we handle it right, we can draw on the second half when we get into another dog fight later on. But what I rally want to do is make sure we don’t dig a hole like that, especially at home.”

Iowa’s deepest hole was 25 points in the first half.

The Iowa players then regrouped at halftime while former Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder was being honored on the court.

Bluder retired this past May after having led Iowa to NCAA runner-up finishes in each of the past two seasons. She coached the Hawkeyes for 25 seasons and is the all-time winningest coach in program history.

Jensen spent more than three decades as Bluder’s top assistant coach and was then promoted to head coach on the same day Bluder announced her retirement last May.

Jensen became emotional as she talked about Bluder’s influence on her life and on her coaching career.

“That’s why I’m here,” Jensen said. “That’s why all the crowd’s here. She moved the needle and changed a lot of people’s lives and changed a lot of people’s careers.”

Maryland head coach Brenda Frese, who is from Cedar Rapids, also had high praise for what Bluder accomplished as a head coach.

“This is who the Midwest is, this is who Iowa is,” Frese said. “Have a room full of media supporting the team as well as the fans. They never left early. They were there through the whole time.

“They’re a massive X factor. This is a really hard place to come in and play. It used to not be that way. It says a lot about Lisa. I’m really happy for her and her retirement. She created this and they haven’t missed a beat with Jan.”

Maryland led by as many as 25 points in the first half, while Iowa’s only lead in the first half was 2-0.

The Hawkeyes only shot 38.5 percent from the field in the first half and committed 13 turnovers.

Maryland also had a 24-18 on the boards in the first half, including 11-3 on the offensive end.

Iowa closed the first half on a 6-2 scoring run as Villanova transfer Lucy Olsen scored all six points. She made a three with eight seconds left in the second quarter, cutting the deficit to 48-27 at halftime.

Olsen scored the final nine points for Iowa in the first half and she finished with 11 points in the first half.

Iowa would go on to outscore Maryland 39-26 in the second half, including 23-15 in the fourth quarter.

Olsen led Iowa with 19 points and with four steals, while senior guard Syd Affolter scored 12 points and had eight rebounds.

“We can’t have starts like that in the Big Ten,” Affolter said. “The Big Ten is so good. I thought we did fight until the end. In the second half, we played much better. We outscored them in the second half, too.

“So, we’ve just got to mimic that and make that a full game of basketball. We can’t only do it for twenty minutes.”

It would also help if All-Big Ten junior forward Hannah Stuelke could stay out of foul trouble, which wasn’t the case in Sunday’s loss.

The Cedar Rapids native barely played half of the game due to being in foul trouble. She only scored four points on 1-of-8 shooting from the field.

Iowa also committed 21 turnovers in Sunday’s loss, including 17 by the starters. Iowa has now combined for 74 turnovers in its three losses.

The Hawkeyes really struggled with their post entry passes in Sunday’s loss.

“I just need to do a little better job of trying to maybe put them under a little more duress in practice,” Jensen said. “But yeah, it’s a big concern.”

Maryland had lost three straight games in Carver-Hawkeye Arena prior to Sunday’s win.

The Terrapins improved to 14-0 overall and 4-0 in the Big Ten, while Iowa fell to 12-3 and 2-2.

“I was just really impressed with this group’s poise and composure and to withstand Iowa’s run to get a rally great road win in a really tough environment,” Frese said.