Brigham Young vs. Baylor, 6 p.m. CT, ESPN2: Brigham Young had a solidly ho-hum year in their basketball league, the West Coast Conference.  The Cougars got swept by the conference’s best teams, Saint Mary’s College and Gonzaga.  They did, however, go 10-6 in league play and earned a 3-seed in the NIT likely because of what BYU did last year with Jimmer Fredette leading them to the Sweet 16.  He’s gone now, but it turned out to be a good thing letting BYU in the NIT.  They went into Hattiesburg, Mississippi–home of the Southern Miss Golden Eagles–and thoroughly beat one of the NIT’s #1 seeds, 79-62.  The Cougars are led by guard Tyler Haws, only a sophomore but one of the nation’s top scorers at 21.6 ppg.  He had 25 points in their demolition at Southern Miss.  Looks like they’ve found a glimmer of Jimmer.  Now the Cougars play Baylor in New York, a team that beat them earlier this season in Waco, Texas by double digits.

That Baylor team is led by guard Pierre Jackson, also one of the nation’s top scorers (19.7 ppg) and assists leaders (6.9 apg).  He’s only 5’10”, but can dunk over power forwards and shoot from anywhere on the floor.  He’s one of the quickest players in the country and last year was a major contributor to the Bears’ NCAA Tournament run to the Elite 8, where they lost to eventual national champion Kentucky.  This year, the Bears struggled in Big 12 conference play–at one point losing 8 of 11 games–before beating then-No.4 Kansas, 81-58.

Outside of the Kansas win, the Bears didn’t have enough quality non-conference victories (Baylor did win at Kentucky) or conference wins (beat conference bottom dwellers like Texas Tech, Texas, and TCU while losing to everyone else) to get an NCAA Tournament birth.  Still, this team is dangerous and will give Brigham Young all it can handle defensively.  The Bears rank in the top 45 nationally in points per game, assists per game, and rebounds per game.  In its first NIT game, Baylor scored 112 points against Long Beach State University.

Iowa vs. Maryland, 8 p.m. CT, ESPN2: If you’ve been following Iowa this year, you have witnessed a young team that got red-hot a little too late, but has shown that it can duel with anyone in the Big Ten.  Someone has to lose the duel, unfortunately, and Iowa did many times by a handful of points–especially early and midway through the conference schedule.  Indiana at home.  Michigan State at home.  Wisconsin on the road.  There are more, but you get the picture.  Iowa got left out the NCAA Tournament because it didn’t have enough quality wins, despite going .500 in one of the nation’s deepest conferences.

Iowa has already grabbed the reins of momentum for next year in winning three NIT games (Indiana State, Stony Brook, at Virginia, all by double digits).  The 3-seeded Hawkeyes now find themselves in New York taking on 2-seeded Maryland in the semifinal.  The man that led the gallup to New York City is the versatile point guard/off-guard Devyn Marble, who is averaging 25 points per game during the Hawks’ run through the NIT.  Sophomore forward Aaron White is the team’s most intimidating dunker and specializes in drawing fouls with his long body.  He is also the team-leader in rebounds at almost 6 per game.  Mike Gesell had been the point guard for most of the year, but has been nagged by a foot injury as of late.  Whether he will play some minutes at shooting guard (or possibly at point guard because of Marble’s versatility) against Maryland is yet to be seen.  Inside men Adam Woodbury and Abodunrin Gabriel Olaseni bring a heavy rebounding influence and can score in small doses.  Outside shooters Eric May, Zach McCabe, and Josh Oglesby are erratic at times, but were effective against Virginia in hitting three-pointers (8 of 17).  May is one of the team’s best defenders.  Iowa is tenth in the nation in rebounds per game (39).  Iowa led the Big Ten in field goal percentage defense and three-point defense.

Maryland is in a rebuilding stage that has mirrored Iowa’s resurgence under Fran McCaffery.  After Gary Williams retired after 22 years at Maryland following the 2010-11 season, former Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon was hired as Maryland head basketball coach.  Turgeon got to the NCAA Tournament every year of the four years he was with the Aggies.  Last season, Turgeon’s team went 17-15 and 6-10 in the ACC with no post-season birth.  This year, the Terrapins are 25-12 after going 8-10 in the ACC.  They will join the Big Ten next year along with Rutgers.

Maryland’s best wins this season came over Duke.  The team beat the Blue Devils at home and in the ACC Tournament.  Their NIT path also mirrors Iowa, having won two home games against overmatched opponents before traveling to a #1-seed in Alabama and winning, 58-57.

Iowa and Maryland are also very much alike in their statistics.  Maryland is top-100 nationally in points per game (71.2), third nationally in rebounds per game (40.8), and 44th in assists per game (14.9).  The Terps also make 46% of their shots.  Dez Wells is a Xavier transfer and the team’s top scorer at 13.2 points per game.  He shoots 53% from the field.  Sophomore center Alex Len (7’1”, 255 lbs.) is the team’s second leading scorer (11.8 ppg).  The Ukrainian is also the team’s top rebounder (7.8 rpg).  Four of Maryland’s top five players (in terms of minutes played and points per game) shoot better than 40% from the field.

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Yes, Iowa has lost a lot of close games, but winning those games are a quality of a tournament team something that Iowa probably isn’t. CBS Sports’ Doug Gottlieb said he thinks Iowa will be the eighth team in the tournament from the Big Ten on Sunday just a week before Selection Sunday. He’s primarily basing that off the toughness that Iowa has had to endure this season.

Iowa’s quality wins so far are Iowa State, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. With only seven wins in conference though, two each coming against cellar teams in Northwestern and Penn State, Iowa doesn’t have a strong enough case yet.

The situation for them to make the tournament starts tomorrow with a must-win game against Illinois, who is pretty much guaranteed a tournament spot due to their spectacular wins this season. After that Iowa will head to Chicago for the Big Ten tournament where they’ll have to win Thursday and Friday if they want a chance to make the tournament, a win on Saturday would help seeding but probably isn’t necessary to get in. Getting that far is going to be a long shot.

As it stands currently Iowa is the 8th seed in the Big Ten and would play Purdue in the first round and have a tough match up against Indiana in the second round. Surprisingly enough before last week’s game against Indiana, their head coach Tom Crean said he thought Iowa was in the NCAA tournament as far as he was concerned.

My verdict is that Iowa doesn’t make it in, they’ll probably win against Illinois and Purdue, but winning that game against Indiana will be next to impossible, especially if Iowa has to do without Mike Gesell as Coach Fran McCaffery hinted at in the weekly conference teleconference.

The Big Ten probably isn’t going to send eight teams this year, Iowa will be a good team in the NIT but just miss out on the tournament. Carver-Hawkeye Arena will get to host one last game in 2013 and send out their lone senior.

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Iowa (18-11, 7-9) came into Saturday’s game at Assembly Hall having won its previous game against a fading Purdue team by 10 points at home.  That win–a sloppy, defensive-oriented game–came without starting point guard Mike Gesell in what has been an up-and-down, sometimes frustrating year.

Coach McCaffery said prior to the Purdue game that Gesell would be out a few weeks with a “stress”-related foot injury.  Gesell’s absence is predicted last until the end of the regular season.  The plan is to have Gesell back for the Big Ten tournament.

So, going into the game, realistic fans and media members looked at the road trip as an inevitable lump to climb over, with the bigger picture being Iowa’s last two games (both at home) and the Big Ten tournament.

Iowa lost, by the way, 73-60.  The team got beat in several key categories.  In the first half, Iowa committed 14 turnovers and scored just 14 points.  For the game, Indiana attempted 42 free throws–eighteen more than Iowa, a team that typically wins when it gets to the line often and does not return the favor to its opponents.

Indiana, meanwhile, came home to its warm, loud arena to face Iowa having lost its last game at Minnesota, 77-73, on February 26th.  Did anyone humor the idea of the Hoosiers actually losing two in a row–with the second at home against a rebuilding Iowa team?  Sure, some did.

The rest of us–the clear, rational thinkers–already accepted the fact that Indiana is too good this season to lose two in a row and a second game at home this season (Wisconsin won a grinder at Assembly Hall on January 15th).  Look on the bright side, too.  It was a 13-point defeat, on the road, to a likely #1 seed at the NCAA tournament.  At least it wasn’t a repeat of Iowa’s last trip to Bloomington–a 103-89 loss that could be best characterized as a mental and physical breakdown.

Now, Iowa presses on.  With its last two games at home, the team has a last chance to make its post-season tournament resume (NCAA or NIT) as lustrous as possible before the boom-or-bust prosperity of the Big Ten tournament begins.

Rolling into Carver-Hawkeye March 5th and March 9th are Illinois and Nebraska, respectively.  In mid-January, Illinois looked to be in a serious funk after a spectacular non-conference performance.  That funk entailed a 2-7 start in conference, but the Illini have now won 6 of their last 7 games, including a win over #1 Indiana in Champaign.  The team seems like a good bet for the NCAA tournament after also beating Gonzaga, Butler, Ohio State and Minnesota.

Suffice it to say, a win over Illinois would help the win-loss column and stand out as one of Iowa’s better wins this season.  Interestingly, Iowa had arguably more quality conference wins last season, sweeping Wisconsin and beating Indiana and Michigan at home.

As for Nebraska, first-year head coach Tim Miles’ team comes in this Saturday, Iowa’s senior day.  That doesn’t carry too much weight, as Iowa’s only contributing senior is Eric May.  The real importance of the game is simply winning it to finish 9-9 in conference (if Iowa beats Illinois first) and to exact a bit of revenge for Nebraska’s 64-60 win in Lincoln, a game delayed because of snow storms and not seen by a typical national audience of hundreds of thousands of people because no television arrangement could be made on such short notice.  That was probably a good thing, because Iowa blew a 19-point lead to the lesser Cornhuskers.

Whatever the uncertainty surrounding Iowa may be, fans and players should feel a little more confident knowing one talking head has a straightforward path for Iowa to reach the NCAA tournament–and believes the team will walk it.  Doug Gottlieb, a former ESPN and current CBS Sports basketball commentator known for his bluntness, said during Sunday’s Michigan-Michigan State halftime show that if Iowa wins out at home and wins one game in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament, it should get into the big dance.

That would leave Iowa at 21-12 overall.  Participating in the Big Ten, as good as it is this year, should carry the Hawkeyes toward where every team wants to be in March.

The post Despite loss, chance at big dance remains appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The Hawkeyes had opportunities in the final minutes to win at home against Indiana and Michigan State, and at Minnesota.

Squandered, squandered, and squandered.

With a golden opportunity on the horizon for that notable victory on Sunday against Minnesota, Iowa (17-9, 6-7 Big Ten) stormed back after being down by as many as 16 to defeat the Gophers (18-8, 6-7), 72-51, in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Mission accomplished.

“You’ve got to remember, [Minnesota] came into this game with a sense of urgency as well,” head coach Fran McCaffery said. “Lots of times, our team could have wilted right there. We haven’t shown that we’re going to do that any time this year.”

After a double-OT loss to Wisconsin on Feb. 6, Iowa was left with little to no room for error down the stretch. Want to make the NCAA Tournament? Go 7-1 — or maybe 6-2, depending on the scenarios — in your final eight games.

Well, a 3-0 start to this crucial stretch is about as good as it gets.

“It shows a lot about our team,” senior Eric May said. “These last couple of games have been huge for us … we’ve stayed confident and stayed positive.

McCaffery’s squad was sluggish early on in the first half, leaving Carver-Hawkeye in silence when the scoreboard read 21-5 in favor of the Gophers. But Iowa would finish the half 29-8 run and head into the locker room with a 34-29 lead.

The Hawkeyes kept up the pace after the break, holding the Minnesota offense in check with a 2-3 zone and piling on the points via double digit games from Devyn Marble (15), Aaron White (15), Mike Gesell (11), and May (10).

This wasn’t just a signature win — it was a thrashing.

Iowa closes with three of the next five contests at home. Win all of those plus at Nebraska this Thursday, and there is a legitimate case for a tourney bid.

Heading into Sunday, the Hawkeyes had an RPI of 90, according to RealTimeRPI.com. Aside from Sunday’s win, victories against Iowa State and Wisconsin were also résumé boosters. If Iowa wins four of these next five, it will finish with a conference record of 10-8, likely well enough for the Big Dance.

Sunday was the tone setter.

“We’re playing well, we’re playing better,” McCaffery said. “This is the time of year when teams tend to tire and feel pressure. For us, we’ve got so many different players contributing.

“Everybody’s ready to go.”

The post Back on the bubble: Iowa thrashes Minnesota in important win appeared first on KRUI Radio.

IOWA CITY, Iowa—What started out as a competitive first half for the Iowa Hawkeyes against #6 Ohio State ended as a forgettable trouncing from the Buckeyes at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in front of an announced crowd of 15,400, as the Buckeyes flew to a 76-47 final on Saturday afternoon.  Iowa fell to 10-7 overall and 2-2 in the Big Ten.  Jared Sullinger led the Buckeyes in scoring with 28 points in a game where Iowa’s players seemed to get their pockets picked for every time they came up with a steal of their own while struggling to contain the husky center Sullinger.

Defense-minded Eric May (2 steals) led all Iowa scorers with 9 points on 4-of-10 shooting while snaring a team-high 6 rebounds.

The Buckeyes, now 15-2 (3-1 in the Big Ten), used a 14-2 run at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half to pull away and stay far ahead of Iowa.  The run extended to 20-8 with 13:13 left.  The rest of the game consisted of more Buckeye athleticism, steals, and quick, coerced shots by the Hawkeyes at the literal hands of the Bucks—few times did it seem like Iowa had an open look or a drive to the basket that wasn’t either swatted away or clawed at by the sticky fingers of the Ohio State team.

At one point late in the second half, Ohio State’s lead ballooned to 33 under a shelling of three-pointers from the Buckeyes’ Deshaun Thomas and Lenzelle Smith, who finished with 10 points and 6 points, respectively.  At that point, fans had already begun to head for the exits for what was a near-sellout.  It was Iowa’s biggest, loudest home crowd of the year after the team generated a buzz prior to the game with road wins at (then) #11 Wisconsin and Minnesota.  There was no buzz at the end except for the game-ending buzzer, as disappointed fans left quickly and quietly.

Iowa did have one lead for the game, a 6-5 edge with 13:46 left on a free throw by Zach McCabe (6 points).  Ohio State rebutted with a 13-3 run to take an 18-9 lead with 7:16 left in the first half.  Iowa clawed back to a three point deficit, 19-22, with 2:47 left.

From there on out, however, it was all scarlet and gray.  They closed the half on a 7-0 run to take a 28-19 lead into halftime.  Iowa could not take advantage of being in the double-bonus for foul shooting with over three minutes left in the first half.

No Hawkeye defender had an answer for Sullinger, who towered around the basket and regularly blocked or disrupted Iowa’s field goal attempts in the paint.  It was definitely no heavyweight rematch of 2010, when Melsahn Basabe and Sullinger battled—each scoring double-doubles—to a close loss for the Hawkeyes.  This time around, Sullinger dunked, rebounded, and tossed in easy lay-ups while Iowa’s lack of size and girth became annoyingly obvious to its coaches and fans.  Basabe finished with 2 points in 14 minutes.

Iowa did force 15 Buckeye turnovers, but were victimized by 20 turnovers (including 12 steals) to only 7 assists.  Iowa’s next two games are at #11 Michigan State on January 10^th and at home against #13 Michigan on January 14^th.

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