The finish line for the 2023 college baseball season is rapidly approaching and Iowa is in the process of wrapping up one of its finest seasons to date. Despite the potential distraction of an ongoing sports gambling investigation that has sidelined the team's best hitter (Keaton Anthony), Iowa sits at 37-12 overall and 13-7 in Big Ten play. 37 wins is already tied for the 7th most in program history.
Iowa has a minimum of five more games to play -- three this weekend against Northwestern in the final regular season series, plus at least two games in the Big Ten Tournament. The program record is 44 wins, set by Duane Banks back in 1981. Matching or improving that mark would likely require sustained runs in the Big Ten Tournament and NCAA Tournament. The Heller Era record for wins is 41, set back in 2015, which was one of two NCAA Regional appearances the Hawkeyes have made under current head coach Rick Heller.
Speaking of the NCAA Tournament...
NCAA TOURNAMENT
The Heller Era at Iowa has been a huge success -- 10 consecutive winning seasons, the best winning percentage for any post-World War II Iowa head coach, a Big Ten Tournament championship, and two NCAA regional appearances -- but the one thing that rankles a little is that Iowa hasn't been able to translate more of that overall success into NCAA Tournament success. Iowa has made two NCAA appearances under Heller, in 2015 and 2017.
Iowa has been on the NCAA Tournament bubble often in recent years, but they haven't ended on the right side of that bubble. Untimely late-season losses, especially against RPI-busting non-conference opponents, have been a common thread in many of those burst bubble seasons. The good news is that Iowa appears to be in position to avoid that heartbreak this season.
Current RPI: 29
RPI, flawed as it is, remains a key metric in determining NCAA Tournament eligibility. Iowa has landed on the wrong side of the RPI cut-off line too often in recent years, which is why the Hawkeyes haven't appeared at an NCAA Regional since 2017.
Iowa's current RPI of 29 is substantially higher than its RPI at similar points in past seasons, though, which puts them in a very good position to end that NCAA Tournament drought. Iowa isn't appearing near the bubble in either of the most prominent mock brackets, either.
D1Baseball: 2-seed in a bracket with Kentucky as the national seed (10)
Baseball America: 3-seed in a bracket with Indiana State as the national seed (16)
The last four teams in D1Baseball's mock bracket are UC Irvine (45), Oklahoma (35), Arizona State (54), and TCU (47). The last four in BA's mock bracket are TCU (47), UC Irvine (45), Notre Dame (52), and Southern California (56). Outside of Oklahoma (RPI 35), all of those teams rank between 45-56 in the RPI -- well behind Iowa at 29.
Iowa will close out the regular season with a three-game set against Northwestern (RPI 262), plus an indeterminate number of games in the Big Ten Tournament. Unless Iowa gets another game with Indiana (RPI 27) in that event, the Hawkeyes are unlikely to face any opponents who will have the potential to provide a notable boost to their RPI.
The reality is that if the Hawkeyes simply take care of business in their remaining games, they'll be in fine shape when the NCAA Tournament field is announced on May 29. Losses this weekend would undoubtedly damage Iowa's case -- this is a very poor Northwestern team.
The Wildcats are 9-38 overall and just 3-18 in Big Ten play, including a current 15-game losing streak in Big Ten games. Northwestern hasn't won a Big Ten game a 7-4 win over Illinois and the Wildcats have been outscored 133-50 in that 15-game losing streak.
That said, the Wildcats have been able to put scares into good teams at times as well -- just two weeks ago they took Big Ten-leading Indiana to 12 innings in a 5-2 loss and lost 11-9 a day later. Iowa can't afford to overlook Northwestern, especially given the Wildcats' tendency to serve as a spoiler for Iowa baseball -- the Hawkeyes are just 5-6 in their last 11 games against the Wildcats.
BIG TEN TOURNAMENT
The Big Ten Tournament is a lesser priority than the NCAA Tournament, but it's also been the source of a few great memories in Rick Heller's tenure at Iowa. Those highlights include a run to the B1G championship game against Ohio State as an 8-seed in 2016, as well as a tournament title a year later in 2017.
Unlike many other Big Ten Tournaments, which allow all conference members to take part in the event, the baseball version of the Big Ten Tournament is an exclusive event -- only the top eight teams in the final Big Ten regular season standings qualify for the Big Ten Tournament. Iowa has made the last seven consecutive Big Ten Tournaments that have been played (the event was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns in 2020 and 2021).
How are things shaping up this year?
With a 3 1/2-game lead on eighth-seed Purdue, Iowa is assured of an eighth-straight trip to the Big Ten Tournament (taking place at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, NE from May 23-28). Improving on their current third-place positioning will be difficult, though. While the Hawkeyes have an excellent shot at picking up three wins in their final regular season series against Northwestern, gaining ground on the teams ahead of them -- Indiana and Maryland -- will be challenging.
Iowa does not hold a head-to-head tiebreaker advantage over either Indiana or Maryland; the Hawkeyes' series against the Hoosiers and Terrapins this year were the only ones that they didn't win or at least split. To move ahead of the Hoosiers or the Terrapins, Iowa would need them to get swept in their final regular season series this weekend. Indiana does have a reasonably tricky opponent to finish the slate -- a road set against 8th place Michigan State (30-19 overall, 10-11 Big Ten, RPI 71) -- but Maryland closes out with a road series against 11th-place Penn State (24-23 overall, 6-14 Big Ten, RPI 132).
If Iowa sweeps Northwestern, they'll guarantee no worse than a 3rd-place finish in the standings and the 3-seed in the Big Ten Tournament. (In case you're curious, the 3-seed is scheduled to play at 10 AM CT on May 23 in the first game of the Big Ten Tournament; the winner of that game is not scheduled to play again until 2 PM CT on May 25, while the loser of that game would play again on 7 PM CT on May 24. Full bracket/schedule info is available here.
