By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

One by one, Jan Jensen went down the two rows of seats and hugged every player on Iowa’s women’s basketball team.

The Hawkeyes had just found out on Sunday night where they were going in the NCAA Tournament and Jensen wanted to thank everyone for a job well done in her first season as head coach.

The Hawkeyes were the No. 6 seed in the Spokane Regional 4, and will face No. 11 seed Murray State in Saturday’s 11 a.m. game in Norman, Okla.

There was a been-there-done-that feel to Iowa’s celebration — after all, so many of these players, and Jensen as well as an assistant coach, have been through these selection show watch parties.

And maybe the celebration was muted because the Hawkeyes were one of the last teams to have their names called, and just by doing the math and seeing where all the other Big Ten teams had been seeded, they had a good idea that they would be going to the opening weekend site in Oklahoma.

What was different this time is the Hawkeyes knew they weren’t going to be at home, not like the last three seasons when Caitlin Clark and company were putting together gaudy resumes that got them their first two games at home, a nice little boost the last two seasons on the way to the Final Four and the national championship game.

However long Iowa’s journey will be this season, it will start and end on the road.

At 22-10, the Hawkeyes’ record wasn’t good enough to get them one of the top 16 seeds that get to play host for the first weekend. Iowa had a NET ranking of 24, good enough to get them solidly in the field but not good enough to let them rest in their own beds like they have in these last three years.

A five-game losing streak in January doomed those hopes, but Jensen didn’t feel like looking back.

“Yes, it would have been fabulous if we could have hosted,” Jensen said. “And yep, we can all go back and think ‘woulda-coulda-shouldas’, but I’d like to look at it and say, ‘Wow, look what they did.’ And so I’m just really, really thrilled and thankful that we are here and that we didn’t have to really exactly sweat it out if we were in or not. We knew we were.”

The Hawkeyes recovered to win 10 of their last 13 games.

“I mean, if we played like we did the second half of the season, we would have a different seed, and that’s where we’re at right now,” said guard Lucy Olsen, who transferred to Iowa from Villanova in the spring. “So I think just taking that momentum that we have, it doesn’t really matter where you put us. I’m just happy we got in the tournament and we can make some noise.”

Jensen wanted to celebrate the moment, she said, because of what her team had accomplished through all that had happened, from her ascension to the head coaching job after Lisa Bluder retired in May to how Olsen and the incoming freshmen were able to mesh with the veterans who were playing new roles after getting to experience the ride with Clark.

“I’m just so thankful when, when I think back to May, when I got this job and was so blessed to get it, if someone would have said, ‘Hey, after the (Big Ten) tournament, you’re going to be 22-10, and you’re going to have a six seed or higher,’ I think I’d have taken that bet,” Jensen said. “With everything that we lost, with everything that these players had to manage, it’s one thing when we all started it, but it was another thing to go through it.” 

“I think no matter where we play, we have all the confidence,” senior Sydney Affolter said. “We’re just excited to keep playing. And this group of girls, they don’t want to stop playing basketball together.”

If anything, this bracket lacks all of the unnecessary drama that followed this team on their runs the last two seasons. The NCAA selection committee could have sent them to play in the bracket with LSU, another No. 3 seed, which would have meant a possible second-round matchup against a team that Hawkeyes faced in the last two tournaments, a bracket-produced rivalry with plenty of media-made tension.

Instead, it’s off to Oklahoma, where Iowa could face the third-seeded Sooners, coached by former Hawkeye player Jennie (Lillis) Baranczyk.

Jensen laughed when she told the story of how she and Bluder recruited Baranczyk to play at Drake when they coached there, and she turned them down to go to Iowa. Then Bluder was hired to coach the Hawkeyes.

“She helped us win that first big championship,” Jensen said of Baranczyk, who was on the 2001 Big Ten Tournament championship team. “And she’s a really, really great coach.”

So it’s OK if the Hawkeyes are on the road. They’ll see friendlier faces while possessing a style of play that can get them into the second weekend, and once you get there, well, now anything is possible.

It’s why Jensen wanted to make sure to congratulate every one of her players.

“I believe,” she said, “that this team has won in so many ways already to get to this point.”

Photo: Iowa coach Jan Jensen takes a selfie with a fan after the win over Iowa State earlier this season. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)