Tip Time Preview

SERIES: Iowa has won three of the four meetings between the two schools. Two of Iowa’s wins have been in Chapel Hill, including in 2014 when Iowa won 60-55. Iowa won the only meeting in Iowa City in 1989, 87-74.

THE LINE: Iowa is 3 point favorite

THE NUMBERS

OFFENSE: NORTH CAROLINA – 72.8 PPG, 41.9% FG, 27.1% 3 PT FG, IOWA – 99.7 PPG, 50.3% FG, 39.0% 3 PT FG.

DEFENSE: NORTH CAROLINA – 60.8 PPG, 37.3% FG, 29.4% 3 PT FG. IOWA – 67.0 PPG, 36.2% FG, 26.8% 3 PT FG.

THE LINEUPS

NORTH CAROLINA

6-10 center Armando Bacot – 10.8 points and 7.8 rebounds per game

6-10 forward Garrison Brooks – 12.3 points and 8.5 rebounds per game

6-8 forward Leaky Black – 6.8 points and 7.3 rebounds per game

6-4 guard Caleb Love -11.0 points and 3.1 assists per game

6-0 guard R.J. Davis – 12.3 points and 4.5 rebounds per game

IOWA

6-1 guard Jordan Bohannon – 3.7 points and 4.3 rebounds per game

6-3 guard C.J. Fredrick – 7.7 points and 1.3 rebounds per game

6-5 guard Connor McCaffery – 4.0 points and 5.0 assists per game

6-6 forward Joe Wieskamp – 12.0 points and 6.0 rebounds per game

6-11 center Luka Garza – 34.0 points and 9.7 rebounds per game

PLAYER TO WATCH – Jordan Bohannon – While Bohannon has been rebounding at a much higher level than any other time in his career, he’s shooting a career low 21.4%. In fact, he didn’t even score in the last game against Western Illinois. We all know that Bohannon likes a bigger stage and usually meets the moment. This is Iowa’s biggest game of the season so far and I would expect him to have his highest scoring game of the season.

KEY MATCHUP – Luka Garza vs. Armando Bacot – The duo actually played for the same AAU program at the high school level, so even though they were in different years, they are familiar with each other. Garza is the top big man in college hoops this year and is facing his toughest test of the year, while Bacot has really taken a big step this season as far as a player and prospect to meet his high school rankings.

STATS AND NOTES

Iowa is ranked 3rd in the preseason Associated Press poll. The last time Iowa was ranked 3rd in the AP Poll was January 25th, 2016.

Fran McCaffery has led Iowa to 20 or more victories in six of the last eight seasons. McCaffery is in his 25th year as a head coach and 11th at Iowa. He is two wins away from 450 in his career and three away from 200 wins at Iowa.

Luka Garza is the preseason Big Ten Player of the Year and unanimous preseason All American as well as the consensus preseason National Player of the Year. Garza was named the Big Ten Player of the Year last season and was a consensus All American. He was also named the National Player of the Year by the Sporting News and earned the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award, which is given to the top center in the country. This week, Garza was named the Wooden Award Watch List. He finished second for that award last season.

Garza heads into the season with 1,661 career points, which is 8th on Iowa’s all-time list. He is closing in on Ronnie Lester for 7th on Iowa’s all-time list. Lester has 1,675 points in his career.

Connor McCaffery was the only player in the country with more than 120 assists and less than 30 turnovers. He led the country in assist to turnover ratio: 4.59 to 1 last year.

Jordan Bohannon now has 287 career three point field goals. He is 88 three pointers away from the Big Ten record held by Jon Diebler. Bohannon has scored 1,321 career points which is 21nd in Iowa basketball history. Bohannon has also dished 518 assists, which is 5th on Iowa’s all-time list.

Joe Wieskamp was named to the preseason All Big Ten list. The junior from Muscatine has scored 832 career points and was also named to the preseason Jerry West Award, which is awarded to the top shooting guard in the country each year. This week, Wieskamp was named to the Wooden Award Watch List.

Jack Nunge returned to action after missing the first two games of the year following the passing of his father. Nunge tied his career high with 18 points in the win over Western Illinois.

KenPom.com has Iowa rated as the 11th best team in the country. North Carolina is 14th in the country. KenPom.com predicts Iowa to win 79-76.

Iowa is 27-23 in Tuesday games during the Fran McCaffery era. Iowa is 11-7 in games played on FS1 during the Fran McCaffery era.

THE PICK

The cupcakes have been polished off.

Now it’s time for the Iowa basketball team to start to face the main course of the season.

That starts by hosting one of the blue bloods in the world of college basketball, North Carolina, who comes in with a 3-1 record and their only loss was a buzzer beater to Texas.

The top line item is that North Carolina’s big men will provide the first resistance to Luka Garza. In the last two contests, the Iowa big man has had his way with the competition, scoring at will in the first half and netting 30 or more points in the first 20 minutes of both games.

In this game he will face Amando Bacot, who is 6-10, Garrison Broooks, who is 6-10, Walker Kessler, who is a 7-footer, and Day’Ron Sharpe, who is 6-11. Yeah, the Heels have size on top of size and they get after it on the glass and are one of the top rebounding teams in the country. So far, North Carolina is outrebounding their opponents 49-31, which is a virtually unheard of difference. That means Iowa, who likes to get out in transition, will have to hit the glass extra hard. That could mean more minutes for Jack Nunge, who scored 18 in his season debut last week.

While the Heels are big and powerful on the glass, they haven’t shot the ball well from the floor and from three point range. Which is probably contributing to their rebounding edge.

Speaking of shooting, Iowa fans are certainly waiting for a game where Iowa gets red hot from three and makes double figures from distance. Will this be the game where that happens as they try to take away Luka Garza? Maybe. Iowa’s shooters are too good to stay this quiet, so it sort of feels like this is the game Bohannon, Fredrick, and Wieskamp bust out.

The other area in this game that will be key will be Iowa’s defense. The Heels love to get out and run in transition and I suspect they are going to try and get it and go off the defensive glass, so transition defense will be very important for Iowa in this game. One stat to really watch is transition scores. I think that’s a key stat for both teams and could decide the winner.

While I think some might believe this could be a high scoring affair with both teams close to 80 points, I think that won’t be the case. Remember the last time they played it was a messy 60-55 game. This time around a few more points, but the same outcome. IOWA 72 NORTH CAROLINA 65