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Iowa’s women’s basketball team suffered a fairly stunning upset loss at the hands of Nebraska on Sunday during a game where Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark was shut down in the closing stretch, and head coach Lisa Bluder was not happy with a stunt a member of the Cornhuskers band pulled.
The Iowa Hawkeyes headed into Sunday afternoon’s showdown with the Nebraska Cornhuskers as the second-ranked team in the country thanks to their 22-3 record and were overwhelming favorites to walk away with the win on the road against a home team that was sitting at 16-8.
Iowa can credit a very good chunk of its success to the play of Caitlin Clark, who appeared to be on pace to break Kelsey Plum’s all-time points record by the time she and the Hawkeyes left Lincoln.
The guard did score 31 points when everything was said and done, but she was held scoreless in the final quarter as Nebraksa mounted a dramatic comeback to overcome a 14-point deficit en route to walking away with the 82-79 win.
Clark had the opportunity to pad Iowa’s 12-point lead when she headed to the free throw line toward the end of the third quarter but missed both of her shots from the charity stripe—the first of which inspired a member of Nebraska’s band to deploy the “Sad Trombone” reaction they were still wrapping up when she attempted her second.
I believe Clark didn’t score again after this. Give the trombone player a game ball #Nebrasketball pic.twitter.com/ACIp0UWJmP
— BFBQBGURUMEAT (@bfbqbgurumeat) February 11, 2024
It’s safe to say that did not sit well with Hawkeyes coach Lisa Bluder, who was heard going off on the trombone player (who didn’t seem to bother Clark) during a postgame tirade where she also complained about Nebraska getting the chance to address the media prior to Iowa even though her team had a flight to catch.
Here's the audio from my external microphone during today's press conference. As Alexis Markowski was answering a question, you can hear Lisa Bluder trying to get into the media room, saying, "this is bullshit, this is not Big Ten protocol… they play music while you shoot free… pic.twitter.com/f34ttfmYoM
— Owen Siebring (@owensiebring) February 11, 2024
Iowa will host Michigan at home later this week before heading back out onto the road to face off against Indiana on February 22nd, and here’s to hoping a trombone player in the Hoosiers band capitalizes on the opportunity to do the funniest thing possible.