Despite the Iowa Hawkeyes (20-11, 10-10) being unable to secure the double-bye ahead of the conference tournament, they enter the six-day extravaganza 8th in the conference at +6500 according to FanDuel.
The action kicks off in Chicago later today with a pair of games. #16 seeded Oregon plays #17 Maryland at 3p on Peacock before #15 Northwestern/#18 Penn State hits the hardwood. Among these four teams, only Oregon has bettable odds on the site (300/1). Dana Altman has done less crazy things, I’m sure.
We’ll have 4 games each of the following three days. As the 9-seed, Iowa will take on the winner of Oregon/Maryland at 11a on Wednesday. If Iowa wins, they’ll continue to hold down that time slot.
The action can be found on Peacock before the games switch over to Big Ten Network Wednesday evening into Thursday and Friday. The semis & finals are on CBS.
Despite the 8th best odds, Iowa are seeded ninth which makes them the favorite to come out of the 4-team pigtail which includes Ohio State (100/1) on a double bye. HMMMMMMM Waiting the winner of that group is Michigan (-105), who functionally has a 50% chance of winning according to the odds.
KenPom rates Iowa as the 7th best Big Ten team at 24th overall. There is not much distance between teams 6 (Wisconsin at 23) and 9 (UCLA at 28). OSU is just below Iowa at 26.
Bart Torvik and TeamRankings have similar reads on the ooey gooey middle of the conference with those four in a similar range plus Indiana in the mix at 29 according to Torvik. Iowa are just above Wisconsin at 25 according to TeamRankings.
Full odds below, from FanDuel:
- Michigan -105
- Illinois +370
- Purdue +700
- Michigan State +700
- Nebraska +1000
- Wisconsin +2700
- UCLA +5000
- Iowa +6500
- Ohio State 100/1
- Indiana 175/1
- Washington 300/1
- USC 300/1
- Oregon 300/1
- Minnesota 300/1
