Caitlin Clark reunited with former Hawkeyes teammate Monika Czinano

The Indiana Fever had made the plays in the final 90 seconds to defeat the Lynx 81-74 on Sunday. The crowd was announced at 18,978, and never has there been a roar of celebration at the end of a visitors’ victory in the 35-year history of Target Center.

Twenty minutes later, the main motivator of this huge crowd, Caitlin Clark, came walking out of a tunnel toward the court. Still in uniform, Clark spotted the target of her postgame search.

She smiled widely, the walk became a brief sprint, and then Clark leaped into the arms of Monika Czinano, the pride of Watertown, Minn., and the center for three of Caitlin’s four seasons at Iowa.

Clark and Czinano seemed to be trying to squeeze the breath out of one another, which would be no contest between the wiry Clark and the strong-in-every-way Czinano.

Monika was there with her sister, Maggie, a member of the Gophers women’s basketball team, and their mother, Theresa. Caitlin and Monika talked for several minutes, hugged it out again, resumed talking, had a final hug, and Clark headed off to the locker room to join the Fever’s rush to get out of town.

Monika Czinano smiled then and said: “For three years, I was usually within 40 feet of Caitlin during a basketball game, but not today.”

There was a family mix-up as to whether Mom or Maggie had gotten tickets some time ago for Sunday’s game. When it was discovered the answer was, “Neither,” the Caitlin-loving Iowans had snatched up all tickets but the nosebleeds.

Monika, Maggie and Theresa were in an upstairs corner, Section 262: “Way up there,” said Theresa, pointing upward.

How far back? “As far as you could get,” she said.

It took a few minutes postgame, but the Czinanos made it down to the middle of the first deck. Once there, it was 2023 again, and the Hawkeyes were winning the Big Ten tournament, and Iowa kids were swarming toward Czinano to get autographs in Target Center.

Snapshots, too.

There was a girl about 10 trying to get around a wide-bodied sportswriter and make it another 15 feet to get an autograph.

“You don’t even know who that is,” the sportswriter said.

“That’s Monika Czinano,” said the 10-year-old, defiantly. “She was our center before this season.”

Iowa had a very talented center in sophomore Hannah Stuelke this season, when it returned to the Final Four in March.

“Much better athlete than me,” Czinano said. “Hannah can do so many things.”

What she couldn’t do, though, was finish nearly all the time after taking a pass from Clark within 5 feet of the basket, as did Czinano.

Get the defender on her back. Take the pass from Clark, either a bounce or a toss, turn and score. Stuelke would make that little turn, and whether out of excitement or touch, hit the board too hard a fair share of the time.

Czinano was catch, turn and score, and there was a gasp of surprise from fans on a rare miss. Monika also spent a lot of time shooting and-ones after putting in another of those bunnies.

On Sunday, it was Aliyah Boston, the powerful center who pushed Indiana to victory with 17 points and 16 rebounds. Clark was 5-for-17 (2-for-11 on threes), finishing with 17 points and six assists.

She also had six turnovers, putting her rookie total at 139, already a single-season WNBA record with 15 regular-season games remaining.

Caitlin’s defenders in fandom will tell you about all the well-thrown passes that ricocheted off teammates’ hands earlier in the season.

Or, maybe, she was spoiled by passes intended for those Czinano hands.

“We had it down pretty good the last couple years,” Czianano said. “If you make room, Caitlin will find you with a pass.”

Czinano picked up a major in biology and a couple of minors as she spent five seasons at Iowa. She couldn’t follow the Hawkeyes’ drive to a second consecutive Final Four, and she spent eight months in Hungary for the MTK-Budapest professional team.”It was great over there,” she said. “I loved it.”

Going back? “Either that or it will be medical school,” she said.

Oh, that old decision so many athletes have to make.

And if it were to wind up being surgery, Monika, world-renowned transplant doctor John Najarian once told me the most important quality in that area was strong hands.