By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

Iowa’s women’s basketball team won 20 games in what was going to be a transition season after the history of the last few seasons.

The Hawkeyes won 10 Big Ten games, including one over the No. 4 team in the nation that also won the conference title.

And when they go to Indianapolis this week for the conference tournament they’ve won the last three seasons, they’ll be the 11th seed, a sign of just how top-heavy this league, now bloated to 18 teams, was this season.

The Hawkeyes are what their record says they are, coach Jan Jensen said after Sunday’s 81-66 win over Wisconsin at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, so there’s no sense worrying about the seed number next to their name on the bracket.

“We’re an 11 (seed),” she said. “We’re an 11. It is what we are. And I think that’s a good way to approach it.”

The Hawkeyes were a 2 seed last year, a 2 seed in 2023, and a 2 seed in 2021, and they have three championships to show for that. Three games in three days in a tournament setting is the easiest path, but this year’s team is going to have to win five games in five days for a grand slam of crowns.

Iowa closed the season with eight wins in its last 10 games — the two losses were an overtime defeat to No. 8 Ohio State and a home loss to No. 3 UCLA — but is in this predicament because of a five-game losing streak back in January that could have, but didn’t, derail this season.

“We coulda, woulda, shoulda, and maybe we would have been a nine (seed) or could have been a lot higher,” Jensen said. “When we started this thing, I kept telling the players, and I think I told you guys, I didn’t want rear-view mirrors. You’ve just gotta keep looking forward. And I think here’s where we are, because you can look into all the paths where we’ve been a little better.”

It’s wasted energy, Jensen said. Besides, she said, that long skid probably went a long way into helping the Hawkeyes grow.

“We had a lot of those adverse moments,” Jensen said. “But growing is usually painful, but if you use it right, the beautiful part can come. And this is, I think, a really beautiful part. They got to 20 (wins), and if we’re just an 11 (seed), and we just go attack it, I think they’ll be OK.”

This was always going to be a skittish season, with Jensen in her first season as head coach after being an assistant for so long under Lisa Bluder, with veterans of the past teams in new roles, and newcomers trying to figure out where they fit.

“When it steadies and when you want to be a star in your role and not be so fixated on the starring role, beautiful things can then happen,” Jensen said. “And I think we landed there.”

This was one of those sum-of-the-parts wins for the Hawkeyes, led by four players who have adapted quite well this season.

Lucy Olsen, a fifth-year transfer, led the Hawkeyes with 22 points. Hannah Stuelke, a post player who moved to the ‘4’ for so much of the season, had 21 points and 15 rebounds. Sydney Affolter, who moved into the starting lineup late last season and came back from offseason knee surgery to start 27 games, had 10 points. So did senior Addison O’Grady, who came off the bench to hit all five of her shots in another quietly effective game.

All of them had to adjust this season, but no one more than Olsen, a transfer from Villanova who was the nation’s third-leading scorer last year and came in to fill the hole vacated by Caitlin Clark, who was only college basketball’s all-time leading scorer.

“I just give Lucy so much credit because few people would have the courage to really look at a school where you knew the GOAT had just left,” Jensen said. “She handled it and kept leaning into moments, and I just can’t say enough, and I think she’s done a really beautiful job.”

“It’s been a lot, but I can’t thank everyone enough for  just accepting me and embracing this team,” Olsen said. “It’s been so much, but everyone’s been so great. And my teammates … I feel like I’ve been here for forever.”

This game wasn’t as easy as it looked — it was tied at 36 at halftime, which led to a terse lecture from Jensen.

“She knew it was a special day today, so our minds might be all over the place, but at halftime, she gave it to us a little bit and made sure we locked in and we had to focus,” Olsen said. “But we’ve been in a lot of situations, a lot of close games, which has helped us grow and not peel back from the pressure. We stepped up to it.”

Twenty wins is one of those milestone numbers in college basketball, and while it wasn’t the gaudy 30-win runs of the last couple of Clark-led seasons, it’s still a significant number.

“That was one of our goals at the beginning of the season,” Stuelke said. “A lot of people thought that we might not even do that. So being able to do that for (Jensen) in her first season was just really special for us.”

The 2019-2020 season was its own transition season, the year between the final season of national player of the year Megan Gustafson and the four-year run of Clark and company, and that team went 23-7 and would have been in the NCAA tournament had it not been cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is now March for this season. The Hawkeyes’ first tournament will take a long journey for a crown, and then there’s the NCAA tournament after that.

Jensen has seen a lot of Marchs in her time. Her older players have seen back-to-back Final Fours. Her freshmen, and Olsen, want to experience all of that.

The Hawkeyes got through the crucible of the regular season, survived a fatter and sassier Big Ten. And now it’s the next journey.

“I don’t really have a feeling,” Jensen said. “It’s not my first rodeo. Anything happens in March. And so it doesn’t really matter. You’ve got to be ready. And if you’re not ready, then you don’t get to have as much fun. So I do think we’ll be ready.”

Photo: Iowa’s Lucy Olsen reacts to an official’s call in Sunday’s win over Wisconsin. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)