As a stunned Iowa home crowd watched their Hawkeyes’ lead slip against Michigan State on Jan. 8, a game they would ultimately lose 75-61, the narrative of Iowa only being capable of playing one half was born. Perhaps what we’ve seen since that point is more of a one-half season.
After that loss to the Spartans, Iowa has suffered five of its ten total losses. That’s not exactly the way Fran McCaffery saw his team coming down the stretch run.
No one would argue that Iowa has the kind of talent that Big Ten rivals like Wisconsin, Ohio State, Indiana, Michigan State or even Maryland have–teams Michigan and Minnesota could be considered comparable to the Hawkeyes. No one would argue that the Big Ten schedule is conducive to the kind of conference record that a team like Arizona or Gonzaga could compile. These can be accepted as relative truths.
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However, that does not grant a team the right to compete in the NCAA Tournament; Iowa is now facing that reality, as they could very well be on the outside looking in come Selection Sunday.
Let us start by looking at their resume by the numbers. Iowa sits at No. 55 in the RPI as of Monday afternoon, firmly in “bubble” range. They are winless in neutral court games, 4-3 on the road and 6-9 when facing teams currently ranked in the RPI Top 100. None of their ten losses have come against a team with an RPI in the sub-150 range, as their most recent defeat at the hands of Northwestern (No. 144) is the worst of the year.
What this means is that Iowa’s resume is still competitive when put up against the likes of a Stanford, UCLA, Illinois or St. John’s, despite the Johnnies sitting nearly 20 spots higher in the RPI rankings. However, it isn’t what we see on paper that is concerning.
Iowa only has two real opportunities to add quality wins before the Big Ten Tournament begins. Should they sweep those two contests against Illinois (at home) and Indiana (in Bloomington), they would still be sitting at 8-8 against the RPI Top 100 before postseason play and would be, at best, 21-10 overall. The question is, do we trust them to not only win both of those games, but avoid slip ups at Nebraska, at Penn State and at home against the same Northwestern team that beat them? Simply, can we trust Iowa not to continue with their inability to string together any sort of real winning streak?
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Over the course of the season, Iowa has only had two stretches where they’ve won three or more games in a row. The first was early on in non-conference play that included the likes of Pepperdine, Northern Illinois and Longwood–though they did beat North Carolina as well. Iowa failed to repeat any sort of similar streak until beating North Florida, Ohio State and Nebraska, the first two of which came before the New Year. Simply put, the Hawkeyes have been wildly consistent with their mediocrity, losing two straight games four times over the course of the season.
If McCaffery and his group want to rest a bit easier come March 15, things will have to start with finding a third option offensively. Aaron White and Jarrod Uthoff are the only Hawkeyes who average double-figures in points, or more than five rebounds per game. That accounts for nearly 40 percent of the team’s per game point totals and 35 percent of the rebounding totals. On a team that plays as many guys as many minutes as they do, nine players average more than ten minutes per game, that’s simply too much.
As of right now, Iowa is in a very precarious spot, and they’ll need to right the ship immediately.
