WHEN: Sunday, March 12th at 5 PM CT
TV: CBS
It wasn't quite the finish to the regular season that the Hawkeyes or their fans wanted, but for the fifth-straight season, Iowa is projected to make the NCAA Tournament. Iowa, sitting at 19-13 (11-9) after its first-game exit from what has turned into a chaotic Big Ten Tournament, is widely regarded as a candidate for the 8/9 game in the first round.
RESUME
Iowa's schedule can be broken neatly into two halves: 16 games against teams projected to make the NCAA tournament, 16 games against teams expected to miss it.
Improbably, Iowa has a better record in those 16 games against tourney foes — 10-6 — than against its also-rans, where the Hawkeyes finished just 9-7, anchored by the loss to Eastern Illinois (a game Iowa led 18-4!). The other six losses all came at the hands of Wisconsin, Ohio State and Nebraska: three of the four worst teams in the Big Ten.
Only one of those 16 games against tourney foes would be classified as a "cupcake"; Iowa easily dispatched Southeast Missouri State, 106-75, months before the Redhawks overcame a pedestrian 10-8 record in OVC play to run the table in the conference tourney and earn an automatic bid.
This dichotomy poses a special challenge to the NCAA committee, who must balance resume assets like sweeping Rutgers, drubbing Iowa State, and the shocking blowout win at Indiana against the pattern of playing down to the rest of the Big Ten's level of competition.
Ultimately, that inconsistency looks like a ticket to the middle of the tourney bracket — a place with a life expectancy of 0-48 hours.
CONSENSUS
Across the spectrum of reputed bracketologists — and ill-reputed bracketeers — Iowa is a near-universal candidate for the 8/9 game.
Bracket Matrix Composite (Mar. 11): 8-seed, avg. seed of 8.58
Lunardi (ESPN) (Mar. 11): 8-seed vs. Auburn (Des Moines, opposite Kansas-Grambling St.)
DeCourcy (TSN/FOX/BTN) (Mar. 11): 8-seed vs. Florida Atlantic (no site projected, opposite UCLA-Texas A&M-CC)
Stevens (Washington Post) (Mar. 11): 9-seed vs. Memphis (Birmingham, opposite Alabama-SEMO/TAMU-CC)
Dobbertean (SBN) (Mar. 11): 8-seed vs. Arkansas (Birmingham, opposite Houston-Grambling St.)
Palm (CBS) (Mar. 11): 8-seed vs. Auburn (Birmingham, opposite Houston-Northern Kentucky)
Bennett (Athletic) (Mar. 11): 9-seed vs. Arkansas (Birmingham, opposite Houston-TAMU-CC)
The general consensus on Birmingham as a site makes sense. Alabama, Houston and Kansas are essentially locks as 1-seeds in this year's tourney, and barring an upset against Penn State, Purdue should take the Big Ten and stave off UCLA for the last top seed; the Bruins' loss to Arizona in the Pac-12 tourney final late Saturday night all but closed their door to the penthouse.
It would be strange to send Bama and Houston anywhere but Birmingham. Kansas is likewise slated for Des Moines. There's Purdue in Columbus too, but the committee will gladly avoid sending Iowa there and engineering that pairing of Big Ten foes (in a third, unrelated Big Ten city) unless direly necessary.
Iowa's most interesting destination is obviously the KU setup in Des Moines. But as fun as it would be: the committee's under zero obligation to stack the deck against KU with a semi-hostile hosting environment, so we'll believe it when we see it.
Ultimately, even against a bevy of talented 8/9 foes — every projected first-round opponent listed above is in the top 30 of KenPom's rankings — the "reward" for making it past any of them is a 1-seed.
B1G CHAOS
With 10th-seeded Penn State's upset of 3-seed Indiana on Saturday, the 2, 3, 4 and 5 seeds in the Big Ten Tournament finished with exactly one win in tourney play; that's the same amount that last-place Minnesota won.
Plently of griping exists about the NCAA Tournament selection committee undervaluing tournament results — and Big Ten Tournament results in particular, as Iowa couldn't move off the 5-line last season even after a 4-day, 4-game BTT championship run.
Of course, Penn State is counting on that sizable bump from the conference tourney, coming into the weekend firmly on the bubble and now expecting to be safe from the play-in round. A victory over Purdue would make the argument academic, sealing an automatic bid for the Nittany Lions, but consecutive neutral-site wins over Illinois, Northwestern and Indiana should jar PSU's standing up considerably.
But those three monster wins might move Penn State all the way from the 11 line to... 9. And maybe not even that.
So for the angst that Iowa's loss to OSU on Friday may have caused for Iowa fans, ultimately it's unlikely to cause much of a ripple when the Hawkeye resume has 31 data points that were already under consideration. It's a missed opportunity, absolutely, but it's not a cause for alarm.
