Graphic: Does a late postseason run and an overseas trip wear teams down?

After months of wild speculation, a few members of the Iowa basketball team have finally offered a suggestion on just what might have happened to its 2013-14 season.  

Senior Aaron White and Gabe Olaseni told the Gazette yesterday that fatigue weighed on them as the season progressed. Today, columnist Mike Hlas questioned why fatigue would have affected the Hawkeyes more than other teams. 

Coach Fran McCaffery had previously expressed concern that a deep run into the NIT Finals in 2013, combined with an overseas basketball trip last summer, would contribute to an early onset of tired legs. 

But Iowa was not the only team to play this season under those conditions. The chart below shows the six teams who played into the third week of March in 2013, and then spent a week or two in August playing overseas (according to ESPN's Andy Katz).

Some caveats: This is obviously far from a scientific study. And the 'third week in March' cutoff is meant to reflect a meaningful postseason run. Iowa and Syracuse are the only teams in the graphic that played into April of the 2012-13 season. Florida State, Saint Joseph's, and New Mexico were finished a full two weeks earlier. It's possible those two weeks of rest made a lot of difference. 

Almost all of these teams had worse records in February and March than they did in the three months before that. That comes with tougher competition as conference play and tournaments heat up. But Iowa's drop-off was the most significant -- they were the only team that morphed suddenly from a good team into a losing one. 

It's possible that Iowa's players wore down after all the basketball they played in the spring and summer. But other teams appeared to be less affected by the same combination. 

Was fatigue the main cause of Iowa's late-season struggles