You may be nervous about Iowa-South Carolina title game. The ...

CLEVELAND — My Uber driver talked basketball with me Saturday morning on the drive from my hotel somewhere between here and Pennsylvania.

He knew his hoops, loved talking hoops, and had transported a lot of NCAA women’s Final Four spectators over the previous 48 hours.

“Tell me,” I posed, “has Iowa ever been known for anything in sports before this women’s team?”

“Never,” he immediately blurted with assurance.

That may be more opinion than fact, but it’s hard to deny that before Caitlin Clark and her Hawkeye running mates came along, Iowa has almost always been sports flyover country.

The people who have stamped the word “Iowa” in the national sports consciousness are Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder and her staff, and their collection of Clark-led players.

Sunday, for the second time in a calendar year, the Hawkeyes are playing for a national championship on a Sunday afternoon in the only sporting event of the day that matters.

The Hawkeyes are facing 37-0 South Carolina, a big, deep and excellent club. The Gamecocks’ only loss in their last 80 games was against Iowa, in last year’s national semifinals.

But what if? What if Iowa toppled the giant again with the prize this time a national by-golly championship?

It would, said Marshall, “just mean so much to the whole state of Iowa, just making so many people proud.

“I think truly just from last year, we've had so many people come up to us and say how we just brought the community together. We brought so much joy to people. People have been screaming at their TV, just rooting us on.”

No matter what happens against the Gamecocks, this will forever be a wildly successful, memory-filled encore season for the Hawkeyes. For all the nervous knots in stomachs of their fans during their last four high-profile NCAA tournament games, Iowa’s players seem unfazed.

Frequently, they smile as they take the court for the start of these contests, sometimes even laughing with each other. When they seem in peril of losing, as they did in the first half Friday night before rallying to beat Connecticut in a national semifinal, they don’t panic or lose faith.

“I think that comes with confidence, from preparation,” said Iowa senior forward Kate Martin. “I think it comes from a confidence in us just knowing our game plan, knowing our personnel, knowing our scout.

“We’re always very prepared for our games and our coaches get us right. We’re not playing with much pressure. We’re just trying to have fun and enjoy every single moment.”

All Iowa 6-foot-2 sophomore power forward Hannah Stuelke has known in college is going to Final Fours. She has the most-imposing assignment of her career Sunday in facing South Carolina 6-7 center Kamilla Cardoso, but she didn’t seem anxious in a Saturday interview session.

“I don’t really get nervous,” Stuelke said. “You just remember that you’ve made it so far. We’ve earned our spot here and we belong here. So there’s no reason to be nervous. And if the other girls aren’t nervous, I shouldn’t be nervous, either.”

If the head coach swings on an emotional pendulum, the team will follow suit. What Bluder has instilled in her players has come from nearly a quarter-century of building mental infrastructure at Iowa. Her players’ poise comes from a reservoir of … what?

“Trust,” Bluder said.

“You can't go into anything that's hard unless you trust the people around you. And we have built trust. And we're going to have to have an amazing amount tomorrow to step off that ledge because it's a big one.

“But I do believe that it really comes down to something so simple as I trust the person to the left and to the right of me, and I know they're going to do their job to the best of their ability.”

Clark said a win Sunday “would be for every Iowa women's basketball player that has come before us. There has been a long list of really amazing talent that have played in this program.

“To be able to win a national title for this university in a place that has loved women's basketball and done a lot for the game would be super-special, not only for myself, but for my teammates and just this program and the university overall.”

Beating South Carolina, a team that wants the title so dearly, is a whopper of a challenge for the Hawkeyes. A mismatch in the Gamecocks’ favor isn’t inconceivable.

Neither, however, is a final act of magic from Clark and her besties.

Read More: The end has arrived: Iowa faces South Carolina for the NCAA title

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com