INDIANAPOLIS — The Iowa men’s basketball team isn’t going to let its 82-71 loss to Illinois in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals on Saturday linger very long.

That’s because it can’t afford to. There are more important things ahead.

Sunday night, the NCAA will release its 68-team bracket and the Hawkeyes will shift their focus from their conference tournament to the national tournament.

“It sucks right now to lose,” Iowa center Luka Garza said. “It’s going to suck tonight. But once we hear our name called tomorrow as a very high seed, I think we’ll be excited about our opportunity to do some special things in the tournament. If anything, it’s motivation. It inspires us. We’re going to play a team like this again — if not them — in the tournament if we make it to where we want to make it to.”

Iowa (21-8 overall, 15-7 Big Ten) was a projected two-seed in the NCAA Tournament field by ESPN bracketology guru Joe Lunardi. The team appears to be locked into that spot after this weekend’s results.

The Hawkeyes defeated Wisconsin in the quarterfinals Friday at Lucas Oil Stadium to advance to the program’s first conference semifinals since 2006. But a trip to the team’s first Big Ten title game appearance in 15 years was canceled by Illinois.

The Illini (22-6, 18-4) led by as many as 14 points on Saturday against the Hawkeyes and held Iowa scoreless for the final two minutes and 45 seconds of play to advance.

Illinois has wrapped up a one-seed in the NCAA Tournament and will face off with Ohio State Sunday at 2:30 p.m. CT in the Big Ten championship game.

Shortly after that game concludes, the NCAA will reveal its bracket. A March Madness selection show is scheduled for 5 p.m. CT on Sunday. At that time, the Hawkeyes will find out their opponent — likely a 15-seed — for the first round of the NCAA Tournament on either March 19 or 20.

“We’ve earned our way in,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. “We’re proud of what we’ve done, but we’re not satisfied with what we’ve done.”

But the Hawkeyes don’t know how they’ll be watching the selection show.

Usually, tournament teams will gather as a group and celebrate when they are revealed in the bracket. But this year, Iowa doesn’t know what that party will look like. The team, which will stay in Indiana until its season is over as all NCAA Tournament sites are in the state, also isn’t fully aware of the restrictions it will face this week.

Iowa point guard Jordan Bohannon said the NCAA’s leadership has been “embarrassing” throughout the postseason process. The senior said there are COVID-19 restrictions present that may prevent teams from leaving their hotel rooms except for games or practices.

Whatever the circumstances are like, Iowa will use the next six or seven days to rest up and prepare for its next opponent.

Joe Wieskamp played back-to-back nights after suffering an ankle injury last weekend and CJ Fredrick didn’t play for the final five minutes against Illinois because McCaffery said he didn’t “look right.” Fredrick missed four games with a lower leg injury in the regular season.

“Obviously we want to be playing in the Big Ten championship,” Connor McCaffery said. “I think this next week we’ll look back, we’ll get healthy — I think that’s the main thing. And we’ll get in and get shots up when we can, wherever we end up practicing.”

Iowa has won 21 games this season, 15 of them in the toughest conference in the nation. The team stayed in the top-15 of the AP poll from the opening weekend on, with most of its time spent in the top 10. The Hawkeyes were one game away from the Big Ten title game.

And it was all to boost the team’s March Madness résumé. That résumé is complete. Iowa’s seeding is all but locked in.

Now, it’s time to cash in on all the work it took to get to this point.

“We put ourselves in a damn good position to do something special,” Bohannon said. “We lost a tough one to Illinois, but our two-seed is going to hold true. We’re going to be a two-seed in the NCAA Tournament and we’re going to be in a great position to make a run.

“There are going to be a lot of great teams we’ll have to go against, but we did a phenomenal job this year in Big Ten play to put ourselves in position to make a run.”