Oh, the agony of defeat.

The University of Florida’s elimination from the NCAA Tournament Southeast Region is a tough pill to swallow, especially considering the Gators were the defending national champion, a No. 1 seed, and a double-digit favorite to beat No. 9 seed Iowa on Sunday night in the Round of 32.

“Overall, a disappointing result for us tonight, but credit Iowa,” UF coach Todd Golden said following the loss to the Hawkeyes. “I thought they played well, especially in the first half. They had us on our heels a little bit, and I thought they were physically tougher than us in the first half. And it took a little bit for us to regain our footing and then they got off to a good start in the second half…we’ll be thinking about this one for a while.”

Credit the Gators (27-8) for rallying from a 12-point deficit in the second half to take the lead.

However, Florida was upset by Iowa, 73-72, when forward Alvaro Folgueiras made the wide-open, go-ahead 3-pointer with 4.5 seconds to play at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa.

Although it occurred in the first half with 8:34 remaining, with Iowa leading 19-13, a double technical foul was assessed to Folgueiras and Florida’s Alex Condon (21 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 steal) after it appeared Folgueiras threw a punch while the two were tangled.

“It’s as simple as we were fighting for the ball,” Folgueiras said. “We both fall and we kept fighting for the ball, and people kind of overreacted. I didn’t throw any punch. It was just a thing of the game. It’s March Madness, everyone wants to win so badly, and they’re a tough team. It’s just something that sometimes happens in basketball. But I’ve got to make sure that my intentions are the right ones. I’m never going to try to make any pain on a player even less without playing basketball. That’s not who I am, who we are, and that is just something of basketball. I don’t give much importance to that.”

If Folgueiras had thrown a punch and been ejected, we may be talking about a different outcome.

But that’s not why Florida lost the game.

Usually, you can point to a play here or there that stands out, especially in a one-possession game, but there were three that stood out to me, and they were all in the final seconds of the game.

First was the missed free throw by sophomore guard Isaiah Brown, who had just gotten a big defensive rebound on the other end.

Brown, who makes three out of four on average, missed the first free throw but made the second for a 72-70 lead with less than five seconds remaining.

If he makes both, Folgueiras can only tie the game with his 3-pointer.

The second big play was the inbounds after Brown’s free throw.

ESPN College Basketball expert Seth Greenberg was ‘shocked’ at the Gators’ final play call.

“You don’t need a guy on the ball; you need a guy that should be on the ball behind the play, then you can deny Bennett Stirtz the ball, make him come back to the basketball to get it,” Greenburg said. “Instead, once he caught the ball advantage/disadvantage, the game is over. Draw a second defender, there’s only two back, you’re playing three on two…I was shocked they had a man on the ball, and I was shocked they didn’t force him back to catch the ball.”

Golden said the intention was not to let Iowa take a 3-pointer.

“I thought obviously on the last play, we wanted to take a foul to prevent them from getting off a three, and they got away from us,” Golden said. “We weren’t able to take it and they knocked it down, so credit to them for that.”

The Hawkeyes (23-12), who advanced to their first Sweet 16 since 1999, had other plans.

“The play was drawn up for me to get downhill, and then this dude (Folgueiras) came up to me and he’s like, ‘I’m going to be ready and I’m going to make it.’ That’s what he actually did,” Stirtz said.

Golden said the Gators had a good plan but didn’t execute it.

“The idea was to keep the ball out of Bennett’s hands, let him throw it to somebody else,” Golden said. “So, we wanted a face guard and throw it to somebody else and then take a foul and put one of their role players in a pressure situation. But they ran a little kind of double stagger, got him loose. We just didn’t make a good enough play off the ball there to stop him from getting down the court, and then we had to make a split-second decision, and we just didn’t make the right one.”

The final play was the decision by Florida guard Xaivian Lee (17 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists) to pass the ball back inside to Thomas Haugh (19 points, 11-12 FTs, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals) with the clock running out.

“I would have preferred him to obviously get to the rim on that,” Golden said. “I thought he had a good advantage on the guy that was defending him. His defender was not in legal guarding position, so I feel like if he would have kind of jumped back into the body and shot a lay-up, we would have either scored it or got fouled. But a split-second decision, he’s out on the floor. And he obviously played a really good game for us tonight. We’ve got to live with the results on that, but I thought he did a good job getting around his guy. I would have loved to have seen him go finish it.”

Condon missed a dunk, Lee missed a layup in transition, and junior center Rueben Chinyelu played 19 minutes and could never get in sync because he was in foul trouble.

Chinyelu, who finished his record-setting season averaging 11.2 rebounds per game, the most by a Gator in 50 years, and his 137 offensive rebounds set a new UF record, was held scoreless, took only one shot and grabbed just one rebound.

Iowa was the better team on Sunday night. They led 66% of the game.

So close, yet so far away.

The Gators’ 27 wins this season tied for the ninth-most in program history and their 87.1 points per game set a program record.

The past three seasons have been Florida’s three highest-scoring seasons in program history.

But this one stings for the regular-season Southeastern Conference champions.

“They were unselfish, they handled our press well, but they just hit more shots down the stretch,” said Condon, who notched his 10th 20-point game of the season and also set his personal best in NCAA Tournament play.