No. 12 Illinois stands between Hawkeye men and good chance at NCAA berth

Bracketology, schmacketology.

Iowa can’t control the vagaries of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament selection committee. What it can do is win enough to put itself beyond reproach.

A victory over No. 12 Illinois on Sunday (6 p.m., FS1) would be very helpful in getting the Hawkeyes on the good side of the NCAA bubble. Iowa has won four of its last five games, with three of those victories against teams with Big Ten winning records.

A win would give the Hawkeyes an 11-9 Big Ten record going into this week’s conference tournament in Minneapolis. Typically, a winning mark in that league gets a team into the Field of 68. But not always.

In 2017, the Hawkeyes were 10-8 in the Big Ten. They lost their first-round Big Ten tourney game to Indiana and went to the NIT with an 18-14 mark.

Michigan was 11-9 in the conference last year, but was only 17-15 overall after the Big Ten tourney and didn’t get a whiff of the NCAA tourney.

Those are exceptions. By closing its conference season at 11-9 with a 19-12 overall record with five wins (four of them Quad 1) in its last six games, Iowa would have what they call a resume.

“I think we’ve had some guys step up and play really well,” said Hawkeye starting forward Ben Krikke, who will be honored on Senior Night along with Even Brauns, Patrick McCaffery and Tony Perkins.

“I’m excited to continue to move forward,” McCaffery said, “and I know we have a ton of guys playing with a lot of confidence.”

This being sports, there is an obstacle. That would be Illinois, which gave the Hawkeyes their lone loss in those five most recent games, 95-85 in Champaign on Feb. 24. The Illini are ranked 12th in the nation, and may be a bit peeved after their 77-71 home loss to No. 3 Purdue Tuesday.

“Impressive team,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. “Big, strong, physical, multiple scorers, pretty deep.”

Illinois is assured of sole possession of second place in the Big Ten behind Purdue. The Illini have potential all-conference players in guard Terrence Shannon (21.5 ppg) and forward Marcus Domask (16.2 ppg), but it was 6-foot-10 senior forward Coleman Hawkins who lit them up in Champaign with a career-high 30 points.

What the Illini won’t have is their raucous Orange Krush student section supporting them amid the sellout crowd. Unless, that is, that group is more clever than it was last year when it was caught buying 200 tickets to the Illinois-Iowa game at Carver under false pretenses.

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