There's no doubt that Iowa played much better basketball in January than it did in November and December. However, an NCAA Tournament invite is still a long shot at this point. To get there, the Hawkeyes will likely have to either win almost all of their upcoming games or pull some upsets against Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan State and Northwestern at the end of the season. How might they accomplish this? What formula could Fran McCaffery use? Let's break it down.

I have been keeping track of all of Iowa’s player combinations as well as the outcome of each offensive and defensive possession for all of Iowa’s games against high major opponents: Creighton, Oklahoma, Seton Hall, Iowa State, both Purdue games, both Michigan games, Wisconsin, Rutgers, Nebraska, Minnesota, Maryland, Indiana, and Ohio State - 15 games total and roughly 1000 possessions. Previously, data from the Arkansas State and North Florida games was included, but the data from those games has now been omitted since we now have more data from games against high major opponents.

NOTE: these data omit the last few possessions of a game if the game is out of reach and players are just running around fouling or launching threes. Those possessions tell us nothing relevant. I also omit points scored via technical foul free throws.

As before, the statistics we're focusing on here are points scored per possession (O PPP), points allowed per possession (D PPP) as well as the difference in O PPP or D PPP when a player is in the game vs. on the bench (O Diff, D Diff). Here is what those numbers look like for all of Iowa’s primary rotation players: