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Well, Hawkeye Nation. We made it.
If you had told me back in November that Iowa would be playing in the Sweet 16 in Ben McCollum’s first year, I would have told you to put down whatever you were drinking and come back to reality. I had high hopes for McCollum and superstar Bennett
Stirtz, but I don’t think anyone had ending the 27-year drought on their bingo card.
And yet here we are — riding a wave of momentum that started with a gritty win over Clemson and crested with Alvaro Folgueiras burying a corner three to topple the defending national champion Florida Gators in front of their home crowd in Tampa. As a 9-seed. I still haven’t fully processed it.
But there’s no time to bask. Thursday night in Houston, the Hawkeyes face Nebraska in a Sweet 16 matchup that has everything: a Big Ten rivalry renewed on the biggest stage, two programs making history in different ways, and a rubber match to settle a season series that sits knotted at one game apiece.
Iowa hasn’t been to the Sweet 16 since 1999 — when Tom Davis’ squad, led by Dean Oliver, J.R. Koch, and Jess Settles, made a run as a 5-seed before falling to eventual national champion UConn. That’s 27 years of waiting. Twenty-seven years of watching other fanbases celebrate deep March runs while we cleaned out our brackets by the second weekend. McCollum just ended that drought in less than 12 months on the job.
Nebraska, meanwhile, is in completely uncharted territory. The Huskers had never won a single NCAA Tournament game in program history before this week. Now they’ve won two — including a buzzer-beating thriller against Vanderbilt — and are playing in their first Sweet 16 ever. Fred Hoiberg’s crew is 28-6, riding a program-record win total and all the confidence that comes with it.
Here’s what makes this matchup fascinating. We know these guys. Like, really know them. Iowa took down then-No. 9 Nebraska 57-52 in Iowa City back in February behind 25 from Bennett Stirtz — one of McCollum’s first signature wins. Nebraska returned the favor in Lincoln on March 8, pulling away in overtime 84-75 after Cale Jacobsen torched us for 13 second-half points. Each team has already proven it can beat the other. The question is who shows up when the stakes are at their absolute highest.
The oddsmakers at FanDuel Sportsbook have Nebraska as a 2.5-point favorite, which feels about right for a 4-seed against a 9-seed. But we all know this Iowa team doesn’t care much about what the numbers say. They just beat the No. 1 seed by playing suffocating defense, dominating in the paint, and crashing the boards. Tavion Banks went for 20 points on 70% shooting against Florida’s frontcourt. Cooper Koch — whose dad played on that 1999 Sweet 16 team — knocked down four threes off the bench. This team has depth, grit, and now a taste for chaos.
On the other side, Pryce Sandfort — yes, the former Hawkeye — leads Nebraska at 17.9 points per game. Rienk Mast is a load inside, Braden Frager hit the shot that sent them to the Sweet 16, and Sam Hoiberg is the kind of heady point guard who makes everyone around him better. This is a legitimately good basketball team.
So here’s where you come in. We want to know: what do you expect from the Hawkeyes on Thursday night? Are we riding this Cinderella run all the way to the Elite Eight for the first time since 1987? Is the magic going to run out against a Nebraska team that’s been one of the best in the country all season? Or is this thing going down to the wire again, just like the last two times these teams met?
Let us know in this week’s Reacts poll below.
