Quick celebration, quick turnaround for Iowa

SEATTLE — For two hours Friday night, Iowa's players celebrated after a dominating 83-52 win against Davidson, the program's first NCAA tournament win in 14 years. But as soon as Gonzaga was revealed Iowa's Sunday opponent, the cheers subsided. It was back to work.

'We enjoyed it from basically from when our buzzer went off until their buzzer went off and we were introduced to them by our coaching staff,' Iowa forward Aaron White said. 'So we definitely enjoyed it in the locker room and as a group. But ... we're focused on the next task at hand.'

The seventh-seeded Hawkeyes (22-11) take on the second-seeded Bulldogs (33-2) at 6:10 p.m. at KeyArena. The winner faces 11th-seeded UCLA (22-13) on Friday in Houston. The stakes are high for both teams, who are striving to advance one more level. Gonzaga is a perennial regular-season power but has failed to reach the Sweet Sixteen the last five seasons. The regional semifinals have evaded Iowa every year since 1999.

The individual match-ups are comparable. Gonzaga boasts an All-American forward in Kyle Wiltjer (16.9 points a game), while the Hawkeyes counter with an 1,800-point scorer in Aaron White. Both teams are stacked with size and veterans in the post and along the wing. Each team's point guard engineered victory Friday.

Gonzaga plays up-tempo on offense and leads the country in field-goal percentage (52.4) and points per possession (1.21), ranks fourth in 3-point percentage (40.8), fifth in assists per game (16.5) and 10th in scoring (79.1). Iowa, which competes in the defensive-minded Big Ten, doesn't have those numbers. But the Hawkeyes are far from a plodding offensive team.

'They get out and they're a dangerous, dangerous team in transition,' Gonzaga Coach Mark Few said. 'White can really get out and run and (Jarrod Uthoff) is fast. I think because of the league they play in, they're used to having to grind and do multiple, multiple actions on the offensive end and guard things on the defensive end. But they're a dangerous transition team, and they will take shots early in the clock. And I mean they, just based on the film that I've watched, they got to be one of the better offenses in the Big Ten, right there behind Wisconsin.'

The programs come from different places. Gonzaga has reached the NCAA tournament 17 consecutive seasons and plays an aggressive non-conference schedule. But it operates its own fiefdom in the West Coast Conference, where only one other team (BYU) qualified for the tournament, and that was a first-four appearance.

Iowa competes in the Big Ten, where every night is a mosh pit. Although the Big Ten's depth of competition is stronger, Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery quickly points out that Gonzaga is 'a top-10 program.'

'I think the days of anyone even remotely trying to refer to them as a mid-major program is somebody that's clearly not tuned into the college basketball world,' McCaffery said.

But that doesn't mean Iowa will concede anything, even in a virtual road environment. Gonzaga is located in Spokane, Wash., about 300 miles east of Seattle.

'We're from the Big Ten,' McCaffery said. 'I don't think anybody in the Big Ten looks at themselves as underdogs.'

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