TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Alvaro Folgueiras left Spain as a 16-year-old with a dream to play basketball in the United States.<\/p>\n
He made the biggest shot of his life in the national spotlight to eliminate the defending champions from the NCAA Tournament<\/a>.<\/p>\n On college basketball\u2019s grandest stage and with his mother in attendance, Folgueiras nailed a 3-pointer with 4.5 seconds remaining to lift Iowa over No. 1 seed Florida<\/a> on Sunday, sending the Hawkeyes to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1999.<\/p>\n He ran to hug his mom while teammates celebrated by mobbing one another on the floor. Beatriz Campos hadn\u2019t seen her son since last summer, when he played for Spain\u2019s national team. He was a freshman at Robert Morris the last time she watched him play a college basketball game in person.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s super special having my mom here. She\u2019s everything for me,\u201d Folgueiras said. \u201cWhere the world would be without the moms? She\u2019s super tough. She\u2019s been through a lot of things in life. Sometimes when I struggle through basketball, and basketball is life, I think of my mom as an example of resilience, and that really inspires me and gives me confidence. Because she\u2019s not just a fighter, she\u2019s a super special person. I\u2019m so lucky to have her as a mom.\u201d<\/p>\n Folgueiras lost his dad when he was 9, so having his mom witness his greatest moment in the sport was emotional.<\/p>\n \u201cComing back after two years, and seeing where I am right now and how much I worked to be where I am right now, for her it\u2019s a great feeling because she\u2019s sent a 16-year-old kid to America without knowing any English. … without anything but dreams and hunger,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd this one is for her and my dad. He\u2019s watching up there.\u201d<\/p>\n Losing a father at a young age can have a negative impact on any child. But Folgueiras filled the void the best she could.<\/p>\n \u201cHe left us with my mom and my brother in my house. It was kind of hard,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t really feel it as much because my mom always made sure that we didn\u2019t need anything, absolutely nothing. So I cannot say that I grew up in an environment where I needed some things.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes I can say that because I feel his absence. I was just going in the court and playing to get away (from) my house to be with something else. But I can say that I had a happy childhood. Something that we all said, and everyone has these kind of things (in) their life. We are not victims. I never let things like that make me a victim. Not to me and not to my brother, not to my mom. We are like that because my mom was showing out every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n Thanks to Folgueiras\u2019 heroics, ninth-seeded Iowa (23-12) gets an opportunity to show out against No. 4 seed Nebraska (26-8) on Thursday in Houston.<\/p>\n Folgueiras, who averaged 8.5 points coming off the bench for the Hawkeyes this season and 14 per game in the NCAA Tournament, wasn\u2019t the primary option on the go-ahead basket. The play was designed for Bennett Stirtz to get downhill, but Folgueiras called his shot.<\/p>\n \u201cThis dude came up to me and he\u2019s like: \u2018I\u2019m going to be ready and I\u2019m going to make it,\u2019\u201d Stirtz said. \u201cThat\u2019s what he actually did.\u201d<\/p>\n Iowa first-year coach Ben McCollum called it \u201cirrational confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, I work a lot,\u201d Folgueiras said. \u201cI don\u2019t trust in confidence. It\u2019s as simple as that. I\u2019m the same player I make it or I miss it. With that mentality, I just don\u2019t let mistakes affect me a lot. Sometimes I do a better job than other times, but that\u2019s the intention.\u201d<\/p>\n The Hawkeyes have never won a national title and last reached the Elite Eight in 1987.<\/p>\n Folgueiras gave them a shot to end the drought.<\/p>\n AP March Madness bracket: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ncaa-mens-bracket<\/a> and coverage: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/march-madness<\/a><\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. 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