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MORGANTOWN -- Iowa normally is a friendly place to visit, but when West Virginia basketball coach Mark Kellogg and his team arrive on Thursday to begin preparations for Saturday's NCAA Women's Basketball Championship first-round showdown between the 8th-seeded Mountaineers and the No. 9 seed Princeton, Kellogg's welcome may not be very cordial.
Not to be corny -- and it's hard not to be corny when you're writing about Iowa -- but even though we haven't gotten to know Kellogg very well in the 11 months he's been in Morgantown coaching the WVU, he seems to be hardly the villainous type.
He is neither The Penguin nor the Joker. Lex Luther he ain't.
He just seems to be a pretty good joe named Mark, who managed somehow with an off-the-cuff remark of 10 seconds in length after the Mountaineers were announced in the NCAA field as a No. 8 seed and that they would be going to Iowa City, where if they could survive past Princeton they almost certainly would come face to face with the Wonder Woman of American college basketball today, Caitlin Clark.
Once, though, as he put the microphone up to his mouth, he uttered the words, "Let's send Caitlin Clark packing," he became a marked man to the Iowa faithful.
It spread on the Internet faster than you can smear a dab of Jif peanut butter on a piece of white bread.
'Send Caitlin Clark packing': West Virginia coach puts March Madness target on Iowa -- New York Post.
Video: Caitlin Clark Called Out by WVU HC Mark Kellogg Ahead of Potential Iowa Game.
So, when asked about playing in Iowa on Monday, Kellogg felt he should address the situation.
"We've had the social media stuff going around and I'll just kind of speak to that for a second because that got completely misconstrued. You know how that works," he said.
If you haven't spent the last 20 years in a cave you certainly do know how it works, but what led him to say that?
"When the announcement came, there was some disappointment with some people in the room, thinking we got the wrong seed. They thought we might be a little higher," he explained. "I got to talking about Princeton and we went through all of that, what we knew about them, which wasn't a ton at the time. Then we talked about if you win you advance you play Iowa and Caitlin Clark."
Clark, of course, has become college basketball's all-time leading career scorer -- man or woman -- this year and has sold out crowds wherever she has played and drawn huge national television ratings.
"If we're going to be honest, she's the face of college basketball. Men and women. Everybody knows Caitlin Clark. Then someone else used the phrase 'If you want to advance you have to send Caitlin Clark packing,'" Kellogg said.
"I picked up that phrase and that has turned into what it's turned into."
And what has it turned into?
A mess.
"People are Facebooking me and my family. I had a Valentine's Day post and an Iowa fan has now come on it and commented and said the biggest mistake of my life was poking the bear and Caitlin Clark," he said.
"There wasn't intent in any way, shape or form to do anything like that. It was just having fun with the crowd at the time. We will never look past Princeton. That's all we've talked about as a team. That's all we're going to prepare for.
"If we are fortunate enough to beat them, it would be a great experience to play Caitlin Clark at Iowa in what I think is her final home game because she's announced she's going to go pro.
"At the same time, what you have me say to my team. It's gotten out of hand. Bleacher Report picks it up and it's all over the place now. There was no intent; she's a great player and great program and so is Princeton. There's no guarantee we get to Iowa if we don't put our focus on Princeton.
"We don't operate that way. That's not even part of my character. I don't talk trash."
Besides, Kellogg sees some good in it.
"I guess we created that one, but it's OK," he said. "My character isn't like that. I've never tried to be the villain guy, but if we are, that's OK if my team is motivated. It's all fun and games, really. It's our sport and people are talking about it.
"It'll be basketball again once we tip it up."