IOWA CITY, Iowa – Stephanie Gaitley commended her team before the buzzer sounded. In the waning seconds of Iowa women’s basketball’s 58-48 victory over Fairleigh Dickinson, she walked from the scorers table all the way to the end of the Knights’ bench, high-fiving everyone on her roster and staff.
With more than 700 victories in her career, Gaitley is the fifth winningest active head coach in Division I. She knows better than most that a moral triumph doesn’t equate to an actual W, but she can’t help but feel pride after what her team nearly accomplished Saturday on the road at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
“At no point did I think they felt just thankful to be there,” Gaitley said of her players. “I thought they were, like, ‘We’re there. We’re going to finish this. We want to make this happen.’”
Gaitley and the Knights fell short of history, but they etched indelible memories and hope to redefine the possibility of upsets in the NCAA women’s tournament.
While 16th-seeded Harvard defeated top-seeded Stanford in 1998, no women’s team seeded No. 15 has ever won in the first round. Close calls include Long Beach State in 2017 (Oregon State won, 56-55), Troy in 2021 (Texas A&M won, 84-80), and UTSA in 2009 (Baylor won, 87-82, in overtime).
The same “what if” fog descended on Iowa before. The Hawkeyes sneaked by with five-point wins over Butler in 1996 and Mercer in 2019.
Considering history, a 10-point differential may seem not as significant, but the atmosphere at Carver said otherwise. FDU trailed by just two points with a little over five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. Its small contingent of fans began chants of “F-D-U” and “Defense.” Even the team’s blue horse mascot (I suppose modeled after the chess piece?) didn’t have to pretend it was exciting to watch the action.
Entering Saturday 30-4 overall, FDU still found itself a 30-point underdog against Iowa. The Knights went undefeated in the Northeast Conference last year and entered this season with a pointed objective.
“We wanted to go in knowing we were the team to beat,” junior forward Bella Toomey said. “Our mindset was to take it game by game and prove how great of a team we are.”
FDU repeated as undefeated conference champions and entered Saturday on a 22-game win streak, defeating opponents by an average margin of 18 points.
“We wanted to hit them first,” guard Ava Renninger said. “I think we did just that and showed what mid-majors are capable of.”
At halftime, Renninger and Toomey tied for the team-high in points with six apiece as the Knights trailed by one at the break. The Knights held the Hawkeyes to 27 points, reminiscent of Iowa’s offensive struggles against Michigan and UCLA in the Big Ten Tournament. It’s not often a surprise to see a mid-major stay within striking distance for the first 20 minutes of action, but Gaitley realized her squad wouldn’t roll over after the break.
“‘Are we hungry or satisfied?’” Gaitley asked her team. “‘Are we satisfied we’re just right there? Or are we hungry to finish this?’ I was just proud to see the kids be hungry.”
The day before the game, Gaitley discussed framing the contest as eight five-minute games – a more manageable approach for a team that lost by 46 in its last matchup with a ranked team (Notre Dame back in November). Four months later, a more confident FDU team outplayed the seventh-ranked Hawkeyes for multiple stretches.
Viewing the game through eight five-minute chunks, the Knights won four of those segments, particularly in the latter halves of the first three quarters, where they outscored the Hawkeyes, 26-4. Looking up at the scoreboard and seeing a one-possession game didn’t shock the Knights, who kept reminding themselves the game was theirs for the taking.
“The trust I have with this team is incredible,” forward Madlena Gerke said. “I think we have each other’s backs, there’s just no backing down for me or this team.”
While the Knights held their ground, they could only do so much in the post against the Hawkeyes, whose size advantage in Ava Heiden and Hannah Stuelke helped them pull away. The duo scored all but three of Iowa’s fourth quarter points as the Hawkeyes went on a 10-2 in the final five minutes.
FDU held Iowa to 38 percent shooting from the floor in the second half, but when the Hawkeyes resorted to physicality in the paint, the Knights fell into foul trouble, picking up five whistles by the eight-minute mark in the fourth quarter.
“That put our backs against the wall,” Gaitley said.
Yet for Gaitley, the other noticeable disadvantage was playing in Iowa City as opposed to a neutral site. In the women’s tournament, top-four seeds host the first two rounds, which helps promote fan attendance. But given the growth in popularity of women’s basketball, Gaitley believes the neutral sites should be pursued in the future.
She looks at the FDU men’s team upsetting Purdue as 16 seed back in 2023 on a neutral court in Columbus, Ohio, and can’t help but wonder what would transpire had her squad played elsewhere.
Other women’s teams seeded 15 and 16 weren’t as competitive as FDU, losing by an average of 48 points in this year’s tournament. Yet given the nailbiters in the past and Saturday’s back-and-forth affair, the game is at a point where change can happen. After high-fiving her team by the final buzzer, Gaitley met with Iowa head coach Jan Jensen, and the former mid-major player and coach shared the same sentiment.
“This is a game that maybe we could steal if it’s not on the home court,” Gaitley said.