By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY — This was always going to be an education, for a long-time assistant coach who is now a head coach, for veteran players in new and expanded roles, for freshmen experiencing the attention that comes with being one of the best women’s basketball programs, especially over the last couple of seasons.

The 74-66 loss by Iowa’s women’s basketball team to Maryland on Sunday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena was another chapter in this season’s textbook. The sold-out arena was a classroom for learning the differences of two halves — the digging of a chasm the first two quarters, the climb out that fell painfully short for the Hawkeyes in the last two.

Iowa, ranked 23rd nationally, lost for the third time this season, a defeat that was as turnover-stricken as the other two.

It was another example, first-year head coach Jan Jensen said, of the target that was drawn by the last two seasons that ended with trips to the NCAA’s national championship game.

Two-time national player of the year Caitlin Clark, with her resumé full of history, is gone, as are teammates Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall. Their omnipresence over the magic last few years has remained a ghost, Jensen said.

The transition — no more Clark, no more sidekicks with their own skills, no more Lisa Bluder as the program’s all-time leader in coaching wins — was never going to be easy with all of the special pressures that come along with this most recent ride.

“I’ve been trying to tell this group, they don’t really see themselves as two times in the national championship game because a lot of them, six (players), are new,” Jensen said. “But we’re getting everybody’s best shot. Caitlin’s number is still on the floor. And the memory of that, of this crowd (the second consecutive season of sellouts), you want to come in and you don’t want the crowd to sway you.”

Maryland, 14-0 overall and 4-0 in the Big Ten, is off to its best start since the 2011-12 season, and that kind of swagger as the No. 8 team in the nation can chase off any previous hauntings.

The Terrapins opened the game with a 13-2 run — actually, the run started with Iowa’s first basket of the game and then Maryland scored the next 13 points — then added an 18-1 run in the second quarter. The Terrapins led by 25 at one point before taking a 48-27 lead into halftime.

The Hawkeyes were flustered on the court and Jensen was flustered on the sideline, and the second part, she said, made the first part happen.

It’s Jensen’s first season as a head coach after always being by Bluder’s side. Patrolling the sideline gives Jensen the same look, but there is a different view and angle that comes with being a head coach, something she is learning.

And the way this game was officiated, Jensen said, made her “too tight.”

“I thought they let it get really physical,” she said. “That’s not why we lost, but I think I got a little incensed. I think I’m learning, I’m learning and growing. So I couldn’t make them a little bit tight. So I’m going to take that.”

Jensen made sure to give a halftime mea culpa to her team, but she also wanted to remind them that there were still two quarters to play.

“I just said, ‘Hey, I think I blew it for you. I got a little bit tight. Maybe you’re not used to seeing me like that,’” Jensen said. “I said I’ve been part of a 24-point comeback before. … And I felt those eyes, I really did, and I said, it’s gonna be harder than heck. It’s gonna be really, really hard. We got to get stops upon stops upon stops.”

The first cut was the deepest, a 12-0 run early in the third quarter. The Hawkeyes kept cutting, kept cutting, and all of the sudden it was 63-58 with 4:44 to play.

It would be the closest the Hawkeyes would get — they got to within five one more time, 71-66 with 45 seconds left — but the fact that there was even a comeback at all spoke loudly to Jensen.

“I was really pleased, because 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,” Jensen said. “It wasn’t so fun right at the beginning, when we were looking like we weren’t prepared. But I do like that resilience.”

“We definitely need to have some talks about how we started the past two games,” guard Sydney Affolter said. “We can’t have starts like that in the Big Ten. The Big Ten is so good. I thought we did fight to the end. 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 20 minutes.”

Iowa’s losses this season have been all about turnovers — they had 21 in this one, 30 in a defeat to Tennessee, and 23 against Michigan State, numbers you can shake off against weaker teams, numbers that can be positively deadly against the best ones.

“Man, we left a lot of unforced errors and left a lot of (missed) layups on the table,” Jensen said. “So I think that just is unfortunate when you’re playing a good team. We missed layups. We had some mental miscues.”

Seventeen of the turnovers came from the Hawkeyes’ five starters, all veterans who have played in big games, which makes them much more discouraging to their coach. Most came from post entries that were either too short or too wild.

“I think, as a guard, we’ve got to make some better passes and better decisions, see where the defense is playing them” said Lucy Olsen, a fifth-year player in her first season with the Hawkeyes, the transfer from Villanova with plenty of experience, but still learning in a new world. “We work on it a lot, but I think a lot of it’s mental, and we just got to be confident in our passes to the post. We know that when they get the ball, they’re going to do something great with it, but sometimes the help is overplaying, or they’re playing differently than we’re anticipating.”

Jensen made sure to point out the calendar to her team — it was January 5, and March is still a long way away as the calendar creeps through the Big Ten crucible.

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

Just another lesson in a season that was going to be full of them.

Photo: Iowa’s Sydney Affolter (left) is guarded by Maryland’s Bri McDaniel in Sunday’s game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)