A look at Iowa's Big Ten and NCAA Tournament position

The Iowa basketball regular season comes to a close on Sunday afternoon and what a wild and interesting ride it has been.

At some moments, Iowa looked like they were a potential top 16 seed and Big Ten title contender. Other times, like in late December and early January, it seemed like there was little chance for the Hawkeyes to make the NCAA Tournament.

Now they sit with a 19-11 record with an opportunity for another 20 win season under Fran McCaffery. They are also 11-8 in the rugged Big Ten with a very good chance of earning the two seed in next week’s Big Ten Tournament. Given where Iowa was trending in early January, sitting at 0-3 in conference play, it’s pretty remarkable that the Hawkeyes could end up with a double bye in Chicago.

Let’s take a look at Iowa and the Big Ten Tournament and then dive into where the Hawkeye sit as far as a potential seed in the NCAA Tournament.

IOWA IN GOOD SHAPE FOR THE BIG TEN TOURNAMENT

Heading into this week it looked like the Hawkeyes were potentially trending towards a six or seven seed in the annual gathering of Big Ten teams. Then Iowa went to Bloomington and dump trucked Indiana and everything changed.

Iowa had hoped to steal a road win at Northwestern or Wisconsin and when neither of those happened and the Hawkeyes lost by double figures in both contests, it looked like a Thursday game was in the card. But, the win at Indiana was a game changer and what also helps is the Hawkeyes own just about every tiebreaker thanks to an outstanding record over most of the teams sitting on eight losses headed into this weekend.

It’s wild how jumbled the Big Ten Tournament is heading to the final weekend of regular season action. The only spots that have been firmly decided at this point are Purdue is the #1 seed and Ohio State and Minnesota are locked into the 13^th and 14^th seed. Other than that, every other school could end up in different spots thanks to 11 programs with between 8 and 11 losses with one game remaining.

Right now there are six schools with 11-8 records with one game left. Those schools include Iowa, Maryland, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Northwestern. Iowa has a 6-1 record against those schools, so if they are tied, then they get the two seed. It’s also worth noting that Indiana and Michigan play, so one of those schools will suffer a loss and the other will remain with eight losses.

There is one fly in the ointment in Iowa’s march to the two seed and that’s if they end up tied at 12-8 with only Indiana and Northwestern. The Hawkeyes and the Wildcats would have the same round robin record at 3-1 since they both swept the Hoosiers and split head to head. Then Northwestern gets the edge because they beat top seeded Purdue.  For that to happen, the results need to be Penn State beating Maryland, Northwestern winning at Rutgers. Then Indiana beats Michigan and Purdue beats Illinois. That gets it done.

How about if Iowa somehow loses to Nebraska on Sunday afternoon? Could they still get to a double bye? Yes, there is a path to get a double bye, but a lot has to happen.

Bottom line, Iowa is in good shape to land a 2 or 3 seed next week at the Big Ten Tournament in Chicago. Once the field is set, we will take a look at the path to a title.

IOWA TRENDING UP IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT BRACKETS

A week ago the Iowa basketball team was firmly entrenched on the 8/9 line by basically every reputable bracketologist. A lot can change this time of year where one game can result in a seed bump or a seed fall. That is exactly what happened this week for Iowa. The massive and dominant road win at Indiana has bumped Iowa up to the seven seed and with a strong performance in the Big Ten Tournament, they could bounce up to a six seed.

First, let’s look at the Iowa resume.

As we have mentioned before, the resume is based on how you have performed within the NCAA Quad structure. Here is structure.

• 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 135-240
• Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353

Quad 1 wins are good. Quad 3 and 4 losses are bad.

Iowa is currently 5-7 in Quad 1 games and 8-2 in Quad 2 contests. One thing I like to do is combine Quad 1 and 2 together because so many programs are right near moving up to the Quad 1 category. For example, Michigan State is 31, Illinois is 34, and Rutgers is at 38.  On the other side, Maryland, Indiana, and Iowa State are just hanging in there as Quad 1 wins. Combine them together and Iowa is 13-9, which is a good and solid number.

If you to look at a breakdown of the Iowa resume, Warren Nolan’s site is the place to be.

We should also remind folks that Iowa does have a Quad 4 loss to Eastern Illinois. However, that may be mitigated due to the fact that the Hawkeyes played without Kris Murray and Connor McCaffery in that game.

Where does Iowa sit in the various sites that track the rankings metrics?

Iowa jumped ten spots in the NCAA’s NET ranking to 33. They are 33 in KenPom, 30 in BPI, and 39 in Torvik.

What are the bracket experts saying heading into the final weekend of the regular season?

My go to site is the Bracket Matrix, which complies all the brackets out there and gives us an average. Right now they have Iowa as the top eight seed, but their average is 7.48. It’s also worth noting that the brackets that have been updated since the win at Indiana basically all have Iowa as a seven seed.

For example, ESPN just put out their latest bracket and they have Iowa as a 7 seed playing Boise State in Denver. Jerry Palm from CBS also has Iowa in Denver, playing against USC.

I think Iowa could potentially get to a six seed, but a loss this weekend or a bad loss in the Big Ten Tournament and the Hawkeyes are back to the 8/9 game.