At the outset of this season, we asked the community for their expectations of Ben McCollum in his first year as head coach. The consensus was for a good, but not great season where Iowa is middle of the pack in the Big Ten conference standings and on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament. Fast forward several months and now we find ourselves in March largely where we expected to be.
The Hawkeyes capped off their regular season with a whimper on Sunday, falling 84-75 in OT at Nebraska. It was the second
straight game where we saw Iowa compete with a top-10 team, only to come up short in the end, the Hawkeyes finish the regular season at 20-11 overall and 10-10 in Big Ten play. That was good for 9th play – middle of the pack.
Now, as the Big Ten Tournament is poised to kick off play this afternoon, the Hawkeyes find themselves not where we thought they would be only a few weeks ago, but where we expected them to finish when this season began. As we await to see the winner of 17-seed Maryland and 16-seed Oregon, the Hawkeyes have their backs against the wall. Iowa is firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble, having fallen from a projected 7-seed a few weeks ago to a 10-seed entering BTT play.
The Hawkeyes have a respectable record in quad-1 games now, thanks in large part to their lone signature win over Nebraska. At 4-9 in Q1, Iowa stacks up pretty well against the bubble. But the Hawkeyes are also 5-1 in both quads 2 and 3, thanks to frustrating losses at Penn State and Maryland, respectively. As of the beginning of Big Ten Tournament play, that would still almost certainly have them on the right side of the bubble.
However, because Iowa finished 2-6 in their final eight regular season games, they now have the misfortune of facing another potential quad-3 loss if they were to fall in their first BTT game. As of a week ago, FanDuel Sportsbook didn’t include Iowa n their list of bubble teams with odds to make the NCAA Tournament. Now, the Hawkeyes are an opening game loss from now just a possibility, but a probability the end up on the outside looking in on Selection Sunday.
Even if the Hawkeyes win their opener in the BTT, they will find themselves facing another bubble team in Ohio State. Meaning that like their matchup with Penn State, a loss could pose a double-whammy. With the Nittany Lions, the loss hurt their tournament chances and put the in more danger with their BTT matchup. Now with OSU, a loss will further hurt their resume but also boost that of the Buckeyes.
All that to say, the Hawkeyes have their NCAA Tournament lives in the line as they enter Big Ten Tournament play on Wednesday. They’ll need to avoid yet another blunder in their opener as they face either Maryland or Oregon (the Ducks are 3.5-point favorites according to FanDuel Sportsbook), then they’ll need to fight like the tournament depends on it if they advance to take on the 8th-seeded Ohio State Buckeyes.
The Big Ten Tournament kicks off Tuesday afternoon with a par of opening round matchups. Iowa will await their opponent with their first game set for 11am CT on Wednesday. You can follow the action on Peacock.
