Playing in the 8/9 game is never ideal, but the NCAA selection committee gave the Hawkeyes the best draw of any 8/9 team.
Iowa men's basketball is back in the NCAA tournament.
That's a sentence Hawkeye fans have waited three years to hear, so they didn't really care where their team ended up. Most expected Iowa to end up in the 8/9 game, and though there was a late from push from fans to earn a No. 10 seed, the Hawkeyes indeed earned a berth in the 8/9 contest.
Iowa, the No. 9 seed in the South Region, will take on No. 8 Clemson in the first round in Tampa, Florida. Should the Hawkeyes manage to take down the Tigers, likely waiting in the weeds are the top-seeded and defending national champion Florida Gators.
A potential second round matchup a No. 1 seed - especially the defending champion - is always a daunting task, but considering the circumstances, Iowa received the best draw possible.
Let's explain.
The other No. 8 seeds - Villanova, Georgia, Ohio State - all are good basketball teams and present tough challenges for the Hawkeyes (whether it be guard play or size), but when you look at Clemson, this is a matchup that plays right into Iowa's hands.
HawkeyeRoundtable will have plenty of information on the Tigers in the coming days, but there are two reasons why the Hawkeyes have a great chance to advance.
Iowa fans will love the first, which is tempo of play. We all know Ben McCollum's Hawkeyes love to play at a slow pace, and that's exactly what Clemson likes to do to. According to KenPom, the Tigers play at the 333th-fastest tempo in the country. That's still ahead of Iowa's No. 357, but far less than Georgia or ninth-seeded Saint Louis and Utah State.
A low-scoring game in the Sunshine State wouldn't shock anyone, but the Hawkeyes have thrived in those matchups - their 59-46 win over Grand Canyon on Nov. 26 is a good example of this.
Style of play could be the difference in Tampa, but Clemson will be without big man Carter Welling for this game. Welling suffered a torn ACL in the Tigers' ACC tournament win over Wake Forest on March 11, and though Clemson defeated North Carolina the next day, it had little chance against Duke in the ACC semifinal.
The 6-foot-10 Welling was the Tigers' leading rebounder, and second-leading scorer. His loss will be a major absence for Brad Brownell's team, but it could give Cam Manyawu, Alvaro Folgueiras, and Tavion Banks more opportunities to inside.
If Iowa can advance, it gets a crack at Florida. Walter Clayton Jr. is in the NBA, but the Gators still have Thomas Haugh and Alex Condon. Their length would cause a ton of problems for the Hawkeyes, but there is one positive stat going in Iowa's favor here.
UConn, which repeated as national champions in 2024, is the only defending champion since 2015 Duke to get out of the first weekend.
Does that mean Iowa will beat Florida? I'm not going to go that far, but defending champions struggling in the first weekend is a consistent trend. Playing the game in their backyard in Tampa is definitely an advantage for the Gators.
But considering the circumstances, the Hawkeyes got the best draw they possibly could.
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