By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Jan Jensen tried to emphasize the positives even as the negatives were staring back at her from the post-game press conference table.

Then the Iowa women’s basketball coach finally had to acknowledge what the box score was trying to tell her.

“I don’t believe,” she said, “we deserved to win (the game).”

The obituary written from Monday’s 83-75 loss to Virginia in the NCAA Tournament second-round game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena needs to be a blueprint for what comes next for the Hawkeyes, who seemingly have been in a constant state of transition in Jensen’s two seasons as head coach.

The Hawkeyes went 27-7 this season, earning a 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament after finishing second in the Big Ten. It’s a resumé a lot of teams would like to have, but Iowa didn’t know what to do with it when the pressure of March started to squeeze.

The analysis to determine the offseason path starts with what happened in Saturday’s first-round escape against 15th seed Fairleigh Dickinson and ends with this game, a double-overtime season-ending thud in front of a sellout crowd of more than 14,000 that somehow found a place to park on a weekend afternoon on the west end of Iowa’s campus.

Pesky FDU dented the Hawkeyes before finally succumbing, 58-48. Then the Cavaliers, who spent seven days in Iowa City and found themselves to begin what is becoming a historic March run, felled Iowa with shot after shot in the fourth quarter and in the overtimes, each snap of the net slowly sapping the Hawkeyes.

Iowa took 84 shots in 50 minutes, while the Cavaliers took just 63. Virginia made 9 of 27 3-pointers, the Hawkeyes 5 of 29. The Cavaliers were 18 of 23 in free throws, the Hawkeyes just 8 of 16.

“When you look at categories that need to happen, the free throws, the shooting percentage, you just … that hurts because those things are a little bit more controllable,” Jensen said.

“They hit some clutch shots,” said guard Kylie Feuerbach, playing her last game with the Hawkeyes. “Like Coach J said, we had 20 more shots taken, and they were just more efficient than us.”

The Hawkeyes seemed tight all weekend, something Jensen acknowledged after Saturday’s game and again during Sunday’s press conference. That ‘2’ next to their name in the Sacramento Regional 4 bracket didn’t seem to bother FDU, who nearly became the first 15 seed to slay a 2 seed.

And it really didn’t bother the Cavaliers, who entered the tournament as one of the last at-large teams. They took down Arizona State in Thursday’s First Four game, ousted seventh seeded Georgia in overtime on Saturday, then cleared out the Hawkeyes.

They became the first First Four team to reach the second weekend of the tournament, and became the first Virginia team to take that step since 2000.

The Cavaliers thrived in their week in Iowa City, stacking wins while having fun with team-bonding activities like card games and coloring books.

“I think we had confidence going into the Georgia game, going into the Arizona State game,” said guard Kymora Johnson, who scored 28 points on Monday, 14 in the overtimes. “Just coming into March, we’re a confident team, and I think we believe in all the work that we’ve put in. Not a lot of people have. They’ve written us off. We came into March trying to show what Virginia is about.”

Virginia coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton, in her fourth season with the Cavaliers, lifted her head and closed her eyes when someone mentioned to Johnson that this was the first time Virginia was going to the regional semifinals in 26 years.

“When I looked up at the ceiling, I was just praising God,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “All the glory goes to my Lord and savior, and I do that all the time. But it means everything. That’s why I came to Virginia.

“I’ve talked about it before. We had to do a lot of rebuilding when we got here in all facets of the program, even just rebuilding the community, the energy. Resources, players, culture, everything. I knew it was going to be a large task, and it was no small feat. But at the same time, I knew we were going to get it done.”

It is a different kind of transition going on for the Hawkeyes.

It was an emotional end to the careers of Feuerbach and forward Hannah Stuelke, whose final home game performance was a 15-point, 19-rebound day. They were the last two connections on the court on this day to that era of back-to-back national championship game appearances in 2023 and 2024, the Caitlin Clark-era that will always captivate this fan base.

Asked about the disappointment of the end, Feuerbach said, “Yeah, it’s really hard,” before the emotion silenced her.

“I’m really thankful for the opportunity to play here,” Stuelke said. “It’s been a lot of fun. Just spending time with these…”

She looked toward Feuerbach.

“She’s going to make me cry,” Stuelke said, smiling at her teammate.

Jensen, whose voice caught with a similar sadness later in the press conference, pointed to Stuelke and Feuerbach, as well as injured seniors Taylor McCabe and Jada Gyamfi.

“They bridged the generations,” Jensen said.

Jensen’s trust in these last two seasons of her ascension to head coach has been with the experienced players, while trying to blend in aggressive, talented young players like Ava Heiden and Taylor Stremlow. The mix of past and future to build a present has been occasionally bumpy, and this season’s gaudy record masks some of that.

There was the three-game losing streak after the loss of McCabe to her season-ending knee injury. There was a 26-point thumping by UConn in December, and the 51-point loss to UCLA in the Big Ten Tournament championship game.

Jensen has been asked a lot in recent weeks if this team has exceeded expectations and finally on Monday she admitted that it had.

“Overall,” she said, “a heck of a year.”

The era that comes next will be built around Heiden, an honorable-mention All-American this season as a sophomore who scored 26 points on Monday. She is on a career path that mirrors center Megan Gustafson, who became Iowa’s leading scorer in her career before being eclipsed by Clark.

There is a starting point, and now Jensen has to find the rest of the pieces.

The Hawkeyes can have a gaudy record again next season, a high seed in the next NCAA Tournament.

Now they have to learn again what to do with all of that.

Photo: Iowa coach Jan Jensen reacts during a timeout in Monday’s NCAA Tournament loss to Virginia. (Brian Ray/hawkeyesports.com)