Iowa’s trip to the NCAA Tournament was a brief one, going one-and-done with Thursday’s Round of 64 loss to 12-seed Richmond.

The loss was a bitter one, especially considering the dramatic performance in Indianapolis last weekend. The Hawkeyes rolled to a B1G Tournament title with a number of record-breaking performances, including Keegan Murray smashing the record for points in a single tournament.

Murray was once again fantastic with 21 points and 9 rebounds against the Spiders. Unfortunately, not much else went the way of Iowa while shooting 6-for-29 from 3-point range. Jordan Bohannon finished 2-for-7 from deep.

After the game, head coach Fran McCaffrey was asked to reflect on the loss and what he would remember from the season. He pointed toward remembering the positives and said he was proud of how his team kept battling even when the shots weren’t falling.

“I’ll remember how much fun it was to coach this group and how they stayed together and how they grinded to win the Big Ten Championship,” McCaffery said, according to Tom Kakert with HawkeyeReport. I think I’ll focus more on the positive than the negative, but like we say all the time, I mean, this is not a game of perfect, so you’re not going to win every game. You’re not going to play a perfect game and execute a perfect game plan every time, but our guys kept fighting today.

“We were not playing as well as we normally would. We have shots that weren’t going in. We had guys that have been playing extremely well that were just a little bit off, and they just stayed the course, so I’m really proud of that, and I think any coach that would be sitting here in this situation would tell you that that’s all we can ever ask of our guys. Just keep battling. Just keep trying to make plays. Just keep hustling on defense and just keep pounding that glass, and play right through the last second and execute to perfection and try to manage the clock, which I thought we did a good job of.”

For a team with star power and serious Final Four aspirations, Thursday’s loss will sting for some time to come.