The Iowa men’s basketball team lost, potentially, its most anticipated game of the Fran McCaffery era on Saturday.

Luckily for the Hawkeyes, it’s December, not March.

Top-ranked Gonzaga toppled No. 3 Iowa, 99-88, at The Sanford Pentagon in a contest that was branded as the potential game of the year. On paper, the matchup was deserving of that level of hype, but in reality, a loss in the nonconference portion of the schedule early in the season won’t discourage the Hawkeyes moving forward.

“The most important thing is to learn from it,” Iowa center Luka Garza said. “We’ve got a group of experienced guys. We know what it feels like to win big games and we know what it feels like to lose. We’ve got to take this to the film room, learn from what we did wrong, and now we’re on to the Big Ten season.”

Garza finished the game with 30 points and 10 rebounds. Gonzaga point guard Jalen Suggs, another contender for National Player of the Year, scored 27 points and drained seven 3-pointers on the Hawkeyes.

A 13-0 run by Gonzaga in the first half helped the team take a 51-37 advantage into halftime. Iowa trailed by as many as 20 in the second half, but eventually closed its deficit down to single digits.

“I think Iowa is really, really good,” Gonzaga head coach Mark Few said. “I think they’re on their way to a really special year. Their chemistry and cohesiveness and character, I was looking at kind of mirror images out there. This game scared the heck out of me.”

Gonzaga hit the shots and made the plays it needed down the stretch though, something Iowa struggled to do. The Hawkeyes only shot 18 percent from 3-point range compared to the Zags’ 50 percent, missed 12 free throws, and were outrebounded 49-37.

Defensively, the Hawkeyes couldn’t slow the Zags down in transition or close out on shooters on the perimeter.

That won’t get it done against the No. 1 team in the nation. Iowa only losing by 11 points against a team of Gonzaga’s caliber, despite the imbalance on the stat sheet, is impressive in itself.

“You’re playing a team that’s really talented, that’s got a great coach,” Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said. “You’re playing a team that has an expectation of winning. It’s a great game to play right before conference play starts… We made some mistakes. We did some good things. You have to try and say, ‘Where can we get better collectively, individually, and how can I build some confidence in some guys that didn’t get to play as much?’”

Saturday’s matchup in Sioux Falls wasn’t a make-or-break game for the Hawkeyes.

Iowa’s expectations for this season go beyond winning its seventh game. And that didn’t change by losing to Gonzaga.

The 6-1 Hawkeyes are a Final Four threat, and were ranked No. 3 in the nation for a reason. The team now turns its focus to the 20-game Big Ten season that begins on Tuesday when it faces off with Purdue at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

“We have extreme confidence in our group,” Garza said. “We can beat [Gonzaga], we just know that we have to play better and play to our potential. And we will do that for the rest of the season.”