Wildly different Selection Sunday expectations for Hawkeye women, men

Welcome to Selection Sunday, in which college basketball fans are filled with excitement, anger, joy, and of course, existential dread.

In other words, it’s another day out of 365 this year. Except it’s a bit worse because we had an hour stolen from us before we even awakened.

With the Iowa Hawkeyes women’s and men’s teams, we have two wildly different scenarios. The women Hawkeyes will get two games at home to start things, barring a first-round loss that is simply not going to happen.

The men, however, will go to some far-flung destination in what everyone seems to be assuming will be a game between an 8th-seed and a 9th-seed. The winner of that almost surely would face No. 1 seed in that seed’s geographic region.

What happened in the first week of the NCAAs last year will surely be tossed about in this week’s pre-tourney discussions. Don’t let the past blind you to the promise of tomorrow. Those who dwell on history are doomed to repeat it. I may not have gotten that quote exactly right, but let’s proceed.

First, the Iowa women. They were a No. 2 seed last year, and may be again Sunday night. Or, they’ll be a No. 1.

Last year, they were stunned by No. 10 Creighton in the second round at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, and the state was denied an Iowa-Iowa State Sweet 16 game in North Carolina.

Are you to fear some sort of second-round repeat? No. The Hawkeyes will be vigilant, sure. More importantly, they’re better and more experienced than last year’s team.

What you saw at last weekend’s Big Ten tournament was an Iowa team playing its best, most-confident ball of the season. More players than just Caitlin Clark and Monika Czinano rose above the occasion in winning that event.

The No. 7 or No. 10 seed that Iowa will face in the second round before a sold-out home crowd won’t do what Creighton did a year ago.

The Hawkeye men? Let’s not pretend expectations for a long stay in the tournament aren’t low. There are multiple reasons.

Assuming Iowa is a No. 8 or No. 9 seed as most who care about these things suggest, the elephant in the bracket is the No. 1 seed that looms in the second round. But that’s if the Hawkeyes even get that far.

Losses to Nebraska and Ohio State last week didn’t inspire faith. On top of that, there is the specter of the Hawkeyes’ first-round defeat to Richmond last year when many national folks had Iowa as a pick to reach the Final Four.

Which happened a year after Iowa was a No. 2 seed and fell to No. 7 Oregon in the second round. So this year it’s going to not only defeat an equal in the first round but knock out a giant in Round 2? Sounds challenging, no?

This is not a prediction by any stretch of the imagination, because picking a 13-loss team to beat a No. 1 seed is not a good business model. However, has there been a team in the history of college basketball that played to the level of its competition the way the Iowa men of 2022-23 have?

Consider: The Hawkeyes are 2-6 against the teams that were the four lowest seeds at the Big Ten tourney, but are 8-4 against the league’s likely NCAA tourney teams.

Consider: Iowa lost by nine points to Eastern Illinois, which finished in last place in the Ohio Valley Conference and was 9-22 overall. But the Hawkeyes won by 19 points over Iowa State, which will have a higher NCAA seed than everyone in the Big Ten except Purdue and perhaps Indiana.

The Hawkeyes beat NCAA-bound Rutgers and Indiana on the road by double-digits. They lost at 11th-seed Nebraska and 13th-place Ohio State by double-digits.

Iowa can beat a No. 1 seed in the second round. I saw a No. 9 seed do it to a No. 1 once. You may remember Northern Iowa-Kansas in 2010.

As big a trick for the Hawkeyes as beating a No. 1 may be getting to the second round. However, that plays into the existential dread, and we’ll not stand for that here.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com