ALBANY, N.Y. >> It really wasn’t fair to Colorado head coach JR Payne to see tears drip down the faces of Quay Miller and Jaylyn Sherrod, watch them leave the podium and then have to field a question about what they and other seniors have meant to the program.

“See I was up here to hold their hand while they were crying and then they left me,” Payne joked through her own tears following CU’s 89-68 loss to Iowa in the Sweet 16 at MVP Arena.

“Yeah, there really are no words to describe the impact that Jaylyn, Quay, Maddie, Charlotte, Sophie — all of our seniors have had on this program. The coolest thing about it, I was saying to Jay and Quay is just a lot of people talk about family in their programs, and sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t, but these guys are family forever.

“In 20 years when they’re going through something, we’ll be the first ones that they call for support. And when I’m going through something 10 years from now, they’ll be the first ones that I call. That relationship is what makes what we do so special. The basketball is just the fun part. But the things that we have last forever, and no, I have no words to describe exactly what that means.”

While the lifelong relationships Payne has with Miller, Sherrod, Maddie Nolan, Charlotte Whittaker and Sophie Gerber, as well as the rest of her team, will continue, the sting of knowing the basketball part is over was painful.

A sold-out crowd of 13,878 — the second-largest crowd ever for a CU women’s game — got what it came to MVP Arena to see, and that wasn’t good for the fifth-seeded Buffaloes.

The stands were filled with No. 22 Iowa jerseys, and the No. 22 on the court was sensational — as usual. Megastar Caitlin Clark finished with 29 points, 15 assists and six rebounds to lead the top-seeded Hawkeyes.

CU (24-10) was eliminated in the Sweet 16 by the Hawkeyes (32-4) for the second consecutive season. Iowa advances to Monday’s Elite Eight against LSU in a rematch of last year’s national title game. LSU, the defending champion, knocked off UCLA 78-69 earlier on Saturday.

“I mean, yeah, it is tough,” Sherrod said. “You never want to go out like that. But there was some things that we can all look back at it now and say there was some things we could have done better. But at the end of the day, I’m proud of this team, proud of how we came out. No quit whatsoever in this ballclub. There’s always things to be critical of after a loss, but it is what it is.”

The Buffs knew that containing Clark, likely the national player of the year, would be difficult. She leads the nation in scoring (31.8 points per game) and assists (8.8 per game).

“I mean, she can shoot it from anywhere on the floor,” Sherrod said. “It’s kind of just like pick your poison almost.”

Sherrod then joked, “But, I mean she had 29, so that’s two less than her average.”

“Man, we locked her up,” Payne quipped.

It wasn’t Clark’s 29 points that hurt so much, though, especially with her going just 3-for-11 from 3-point range. It was her 15 assists which, from the start, got her teammates involved.

Clark had six of her assists in the first quarter and she wound up having four teammates score in double figures: Sydney Affolter with 15, Gabbie Marshall and Kate Martin with 14 and Hannah Stuelke with 11 (along with 10 rebounds).

“That’s the part that I would say is the hard piece is that she got everybody else involved,” Sherrod said. “It just speaks to the type of player she is. She’s unselfish and she got everybody else going. That’s just tough when everybody else is hitting, too.”

The Hawkeyes went on a 10-0 run to open up a 27-14 lead a minute into the second quarter. They stretched the lead to 19 in the first 75 seconds of the third quarter and put the game out of reach with a 10-2 run late in the third. Iowa’s lead got to 27 in the fourth quarter.

“Just a complete basketball game is what it felt like,” Clark said. “I think this was the first time in about three games we were able to put together what felt like a complete basketball game on both ends of the floor.”

While the Hawkeyes were rolling offensively, CU never got its own offense going.

Aaronette Vonleh had 13 points and five rebounds, while Frida Formann and Maddie Nolan had 12 points each to lead the Buffs. But, CU hit just 37.5% (27-of-72) of its shots.

“We were just trying to just get going and find a rhythm, but every time I think we kind of tried to make a run, they just came back and made threes,” Formann said. “We never really got the momentum for more than two minutes maybe.”

That was an unusual feeling for the Buffs, who were in every other game this season — except for a Nov. 25 loss to North Carolina State.

“Helpless might be the right word, only because we were trying so many different things and nothing really seemed to stem the tide,” Payne said. “But as we all saw, our team is built on toughness and grit, never quit, never stop. We competed the whole night. But yeah, they were just better than us today.

“I think we’re a really great team. I think we could have won. We believed that we would win the game. But they were better than us today.”