Despite falling to the Iowa Hawkeyes in heart-wrenching fashion Sunday, the outcome did nothing to detract from what was an emotional send-off to two highly decorated senior guards.

Appearing for the last time at the Kohl Center in front of a season-high 11,369 fans, Rae Lin D’Alie and Teah Gant — playing in their 128th and 127th games, respectively, first and second all time at Wisconsin — put on displays befitting the legacies built in their four years at UW.

However, before they could begin putting the finishing touches on memorable careers, the two were faced with a unique challenge: fighting back tears before a game.

“It’s hard when you look at your family, and they’re crying,” D’Alie, a Waterford native, said. “I’m like, ‘Mom, I’m not going to look at you right now. You’re bawling and I’m supposed to be ballin’. I can’t do it.’ So that was something I kind of got a little choked up at first, but I took a breath and was just like, ‘Don’t look at Mom right now.’

“And I told her, ‘Ma, I’ll cry with you after the game, but I can’t do that right now.'”

Gant, too, struggled with the magnitude of the moment.

“Leading up to the game, all my teammates were saying I was going to cry,” Gant, of Oswego, Ill., said. “It is an emotional time — last game at the Kohl Center — but … before the game we have to focus on the game itself. Like, it’s good that we’re seniors and that was our last time playing here, but we still had a job to do.”

And although the Badgers ultimately fell short in this outing, 68-60 in overtime, the loss was not for a lack of effort and production from the two seniors.

D’Alie, who posted a career-high 21 points last Thursday in a blowout victory over Penn State, filled the box sheet in a way that’s become common for the diminutive (5-foot-3) point guard. She finished the contest with 15 points, seven assists, six rebounds and five steals in 41 minutes of action.

In so doing, the Badger’s floor general surpassed 900 points in her career, moved into 10th place on the school’s steals list and climbed to second in all-time assists, trailing only Tamara Moore, a standout guard from 1998-2002.

Similarly, Gant, a defensive specialist who is second on the squad in assists, aptly demonstrated why she has been so valuable to the program. Finishing with seven points and seven rebounds, Gant also led a defensive attack that forced Iowa’s top three scorers — Kamille Wahlin, Kachine Alexander and Jaime Printy — to shoot a combined 17-of-48 (35 percent).

After the game, head coach Lisa Stone noted that while both players excelled on the hardwood in their time at UW, their achievements didn’t stop there.

“They’ve done it the right way,” Stone said. “They’re great student-athletes. They represent a great university with the utmost class. I’m proud to have known them and have coached them and consider them friends.”

As for the student part of the equation, D’Alie will graduate with a degree in sociology. She hopes to enter the world of coaching — a seemingly natural fit considering D’Alie’s on-court leadership.

Gant will graduate with a degree in industrial engineering, a field in which she hopes to continue in graduate school.

For now, the two have more immediate goals as Wisconsin is positioned to make a Big Ten tournament run this coming weekend, as well as to earn its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2002.

Though bigger things lie ahead for the two departing players, after the game Sunday they were able to relish the moment, watching a sentimental video tribute to the two of them, which featured heartfelt messages to each from Stone and a highlight montage of their on-court moments as Badgers.

Yet as Gant and D’Alie embark upon their final month as collegiate basketball players, in glancing back at their experiences, D’Alie pointed not to exploits from between the lines, but to memories outside of them.

“All those off-the-court, in the locker room, goofing around [moments],” D’Alie said. “You know, we clap at the end of practice and we’re all dancing and trying to make beats and the coaches are involved — that little stuff is just unbelievable.

“To get a group of individuals to get along the way we do. It’s not like we tolerate each other, we actually love each other. … We genuinely love each other and that’s definitely the most [important thing] I’ll take from this year.”