A look at Iowa's NCAA resume
Tyler Cook and the Hawkeyes are eyeing a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
Tom Kakert • HawkeyeReport.com
@hawkeyereport
This Iowa basketball team is certainly making every game interesting and exciting.
Essentially the last four Hawkeye games have come down to the final minute and the last three have come down to the final shot of the game to decide the outcome.
The good news, Iowa has won three of those four games.
The bad news, the Hawkeyes lost on Tuesday night to Maryland and that’s certainly going to end up impacting their chances for the double bye in the Big Ten Tournament.
With 14 schools in the league, the conference tournament starts on a Wednesday when teams 11-14 in the conference standings begin play. Then on Thursday, the Wednesday winners are joined by six other teams. On Friday, the top four seeds play their first game in the conference tournament.
As of Wednesday morning, the top half of the Big Ten standings were as follows:
Michigan 12-3
Michigan State 12-3
Purdue 12-3
Maryland 11-5
Wisconsin 10-5
Iowa 9-6
Every other team has at least 8 losses, so the top six seem relatively settled. And it’s probably a top three fighting for those spots with a two game edge and then Iowa, Wisconsin, and Maryland fighting for that final double bye spot, with the Terps and Badgers holding an edge.
Iowa only plays Maryland once this year, so the Terps have the tiebreaker. Iowa now has to finish a game ahead of Maryland to get to the four seed, which seems somewhat unlikely unless the Hawkeyes were to run the table and the Terps stumble. A reminder, the Hawkeyes still have to play at Wisconsin, so the best guess is the six seed is most likely for them in Chicago.
If you want to play around with the Big Ten Tournament bracket and look at where the standings could end up, this is a great site.
http://bball.notnothing.net/big10.php?sport=mbb
Now, on to the NCAA Tournament discussion that I think most Iowa fans are interested in having.
My sense right now is Iowa’s most likely seed is a 6. Could get to a 5 seed with a couple of road wins in the final weeks of the regular season and a drop to a 7 is possible with a bad stretch run. Best guess is the finish is probably somewhere in the middle of that and a 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
NCAA NET Rating as of Wednesday morning (not updated): 28
KenPom.com Rating: 28
OLD NCAA RPI: 32
ELO: 32
Remember, these are just guides for the NCAA selection committee and not the way they have to seed teams and I suspect that Iowa’s resume will help them a bit when it comes time for this process to take place.
Here’s a look at Iowa’s team sheet that the NCAA committee will look at in March:
Again, for those who aren’t familiar, there’s a quadrant system that the NCAA uses to rank wins.
Quadrant 1: Home 1-30; Neutral 1-50; Away 1-75 Quadrant 2: Home 31-75; Neutral 51-100; Away 76-135 Quadrant 3: Home 76-160; Neutral 101-200; Away 136-240 Quadrant 4: Home 161-plus; Neutral 201-plus; Away 241-plus.
Of note in this is that there could be some movement for Iowa on the quad wins side of things.
First, UNI is getting comfortable into the Quad 3 area, which is good. They had been in the Quad 4 area earlier this year.
Second, there’s probably a decent chance that Illinois jumps to a Quad 2 win shortly if they continue to play well.
Third, the win at Penn State is awfully close to becoming a Quad 2 win instead of a Quad 1 victory. That will be something to watch.
Finally, Iowa doesn’t have any bad losses. When the committee sits down to seed team, they look for those type of things on a resume.If you only have Quad 1 losses, that's ok. A Quad 3 loss would be a blemish.
Of Iowa’s remaining regular season games: @Ohio State, @Wisconsin, and @Nebraska will be Quad 1 games. The game against Indiana on Friday will be a Quad 2 game and the final regular season home game against Rutgers will be a Quad 3 game.
Now, the other question that we get quite often, where might Iowa play in the NCAA Tournament?
Jerry Palm from CBSSports.com has Iowa as a 4 seed, which seems high, and playing in San Jose.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/bracketology/
Joe Lunardi from ESPN has Iowa as a six seed playing in Tulsa.
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology/_/iteration/234
And if you want a look at what all the bracket experts are thinking, check out this site. They have Iowa as a six seed as of Wednesday morning.
http://www.bracketmatrix.com/
What about potentially playing in Des Moines, who hosts round of 64 and 32 games this year?
It seems unlikely.
The NCAA doesn’t like to give a better seeded team a disadvantage. The only scenario that I could see where it could be possible, but still unlikely, is if Kansas ends up in Des Moines as a 3 seed. Most brackets have Michigan and Michigan State as 2 seeds in Des Moines and if that happens, Iowa couldn’t play them that early.
Other destinations that seem unlikely are Columbus, OH and Columbia, SC. Columbia is going to get two one seeds, so they will have 8/9 games. Columbus is probably getting a one seed and a high two seed. Salt Lake City is another host site and they are going to have a one seed along with probably a 4/5 match-up.
So that leaves us with San Jose, Hartford, Jacksonville, and Tulsa. Right now, Tulsa looks like it will have a 3/6 for both of their match-ups, but one of them could be Purdue. Hartford is also in the mix for a 3/6, as of today. Jacksonville will likely have a 2/7 pairing, so that should be on the radar. San Jose could end up with a pair of 4/5 games there, so Iowa would have to do some work to get there.
That’s where things stand as of Wednesday morning. We will update again next week because this time of year, there can be some significant changes in a short period of time.
Tyler Cook and the Hawkeyes are eyeing a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
Tom Kakert • HawkeyeReport.com
@hawkeyereport
This Iowa basketball team is certainly making every game interesting and exciting.
Essentially the last four Hawkeye games have come down to the final minute and the last three have come down to the final shot of the game to decide the outcome.
The good news, Iowa has won three of those four games.
The bad news, the Hawkeyes lost on Tuesday night to Maryland and that’s certainly going to end up impacting their chances for the double bye in the Big Ten Tournament.
With 14 schools in the league, the conference tournament starts on a Wednesday when teams 11-14 in the conference standings begin play. Then on Thursday, the Wednesday winners are joined by six other teams. On Friday, the top four seeds play their first game in the conference tournament.
As of Wednesday morning, the top half of the Big Ten standings were as follows:
Michigan 12-3
Michigan State 12-3
Purdue 12-3
Maryland 11-5
Wisconsin 10-5
Iowa 9-6
Every other team has at least 8 losses, so the top six seem relatively settled. And it’s probably a top three fighting for those spots with a two game edge and then Iowa, Wisconsin, and Maryland fighting for that final double bye spot, with the Terps and Badgers holding an edge.
Iowa only plays Maryland once this year, so the Terps have the tiebreaker. Iowa now has to finish a game ahead of Maryland to get to the four seed, which seems somewhat unlikely unless the Hawkeyes were to run the table and the Terps stumble. A reminder, the Hawkeyes still have to play at Wisconsin, so the best guess is the six seed is most likely for them in Chicago.
If you want to play around with the Big Ten Tournament bracket and look at where the standings could end up, this is a great site.
http://bball.notnothing.net/big10.php?sport=mbb
Now, on to the NCAA Tournament discussion that I think most Iowa fans are interested in having.
My sense right now is Iowa’s most likely seed is a 6. Could get to a 5 seed with a couple of road wins in the final weeks of the regular season and a drop to a 7 is possible with a bad stretch run. Best guess is the finish is probably somewhere in the middle of that and a 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
NCAA NET Rating as of Wednesday morning (not updated): 28
KenPom.com Rating: 28
OLD NCAA RPI: 32
ELO: 32
Remember, these are just guides for the NCAA selection committee and not the way they have to seed teams and I suspect that Iowa’s resume will help them a bit when it comes time for this process to take place.
Here’s a look at Iowa’s team sheet that the NCAA committee will look at in March:
Again, for those who aren’t familiar, there’s a quadrant system that the NCAA uses to rank wins.
Quadrant 1: Home 1-30; Neutral 1-50; Away 1-75 Quadrant 2: Home 31-75; Neutral 51-100; Away 76-135 Quadrant 3: Home 76-160; Neutral 101-200; Away 136-240 Quadrant 4: Home 161-plus; Neutral 201-plus; Away 241-plus.
Of note in this is that there could be some movement for Iowa on the quad wins side of things.
First, UNI is getting comfortable into the Quad 3 area, which is good. They had been in the Quad 4 area earlier this year.
Second, there’s probably a decent chance that Illinois jumps to a Quad 2 win shortly if they continue to play well.
Third, the win at Penn State is awfully close to becoming a Quad 2 win instead of a Quad 1 victory. That will be something to watch.
Finally, Iowa doesn’t have any bad losses. When the committee sits down to seed team, they look for those type of things on a resume.If you only have Quad 1 losses, that's ok. A Quad 3 loss would be a blemish.
Of Iowa’s remaining regular season games: @Ohio State, @Wisconsin, and @Nebraska will be Quad 1 games. The game against Indiana on Friday will be a Quad 2 game and the final regular season home game against Rutgers will be a Quad 3 game.
Now, the other question that we get quite often, where might Iowa play in the NCAA Tournament?
Jerry Palm from CBSSports.com has Iowa as a 4 seed, which seems high, and playing in San Jose.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/bracketology/
Joe Lunardi from ESPN has Iowa as a six seed playing in Tulsa.
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology/_/iteration/234
And if you want a look at what all the bracket experts are thinking, check out this site. They have Iowa as a six seed as of Wednesday morning.
http://www.bracketmatrix.com/
What about potentially playing in Des Moines, who hosts round of 64 and 32 games this year?
It seems unlikely.
The NCAA doesn’t like to give a better seeded team a disadvantage. The only scenario that I could see where it could be possible, but still unlikely, is if Kansas ends up in Des Moines as a 3 seed. Most brackets have Michigan and Michigan State as 2 seeds in Des Moines and if that happens, Iowa couldn’t play them that early.
Other destinations that seem unlikely are Columbus, OH and Columbia, SC. Columbia is going to get two one seeds, so they will have 8/9 games. Columbus is probably getting a one seed and a high two seed. Salt Lake City is another host site and they are going to have a one seed along with probably a 4/5 match-up.
So that leaves us with San Jose, Hartford, Jacksonville, and Tulsa. Right now, Tulsa looks like it will have a 3/6 for both of their match-ups, but one of them could be Purdue. Hartford is also in the mix for a 3/6, as of today. Jacksonville will likely have a 2/7 pairing, so that should be on the radar. San Jose could end up with a pair of 4/5 games there, so Iowa would have to do some work to get there.
That’s where things stand as of Wednesday morning. We will update again next week because this time of year, there can be some significant changes in a short period of time.
