Iowa Hawkeyes
Psh, who needs the Final Four in Atlanta when we Terps fans have our very own in New York City? Regardless of location, the team’s first postseason berth since 2010 has yielded some good results for coach Mark Turgeon’s team.
And after a game that left us checking our pulses and a week of center Alex Len shooting a million free throws in practice, we come up to a future conference foe and our NIT semifinal Nonconfriend: the University of Iowa Hawkeyes.
A LOOK BACK: A (surprisingly) rowdy basketball crowd in Tuscaloosa, Ala., would’ve gone crazier than a Junebug in July (as those in ‘Bama would say it) if the Crimson Tide could have come back. After all, they were down eight points with less than four minutes left and had the ball, with a chance to take the lead with 19.1 seconds left in the game.
Unfortunately, wins for Alabama on the hardwood are not basic guarantees like they are on the football field. The Terps pulled off the 58-57 squeaker thanks in large part to Len’s 15-point, 13-rebound, five-block performance (we’ll forget about the foul trouble and missed late free throws). As Turgeon said, the Terps “just held on.”
COMING IN TO THE GAME: The Iowa Hawkeyes pulled off something the Terps and 19 other opponents this season could not: a win in John Paul Jones Arena against the Virginia Cavaliers.
It’s a sign of maturity for coach Fran McCaffery’s Hawkeyes (24-12), a team that has had an up-and-down season in Iowa City. Sure, they finished a respectable 9-9 record in the Big Ten and racked up 12 Nonconfriends wins in the regular season, but, like the Terps, Iowa didn’t take advantage of quality win opportunities, going 0-7 against ranked conference opponents.
The NIT, however, has been a bright spot, with the Hawkeyes easily beating Indiana State and Stony Brook at home before the 75-64 road victory against the Cavaliers.
STRENGTHS: Rebounding against the Terps is usually a dilemma for most teams. A good solution to the problem? Start five players taller than 6-foot-5.
Iowa is ranked 38th in rebound margin in the nation, just a short distance from the Terps’ fourth-place spot in same ranking. Look for the battle under the net to be fierce as Turgeon’s squad faces a rare example of a team that could outmuscle them.
WEAKNESSES: Iowa and their just-more-than 70 points per game will hope to stick with the sound field goal percentage and fast pace of the Terps. And if they can’t, the arc will not bail them out.
Iowa ranks a lowly 269th in three-point shooting nationally; if the Hawkeyes fall behind by a considerable margin, it could be a tough hole to climb out of.
CAMPUS CONNECTION: Hmmmm… does our university president count?
Wallace Loh, before taking the top job at this university, served as the provost at Iowa from 2008 until his 2010 appointment in College Park. Most notable during his time in Iowa City, Loh fought to curb underage drinking and tighten laws against consumption of “adult drinks” by minors, actions that presumably earned him a lot of fans on the campus.
FUN FACT: More than a year after flooding damaged more than 20 major campus buildings, Iowa received some much-need good news: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization named Iowa City the third “City of Literature” in the world, joining other small towns such as Melbourne, Australia and Edinburgh, Scotland. College Park, meanwhile, remains the only livable community in the world.
TCL (TERP CONFIDENCE LEVEL): Seven out of 10. Part of me wanted to make this higher; the Terps have won all sorts of games on the way to MSG and seem to have a plucky mojo about them. But Iowa is stiff competition; the Terps must keep mistakes to a minimum if they hope to secure a championship game berth.
NEXT NONCONFRIEND: A loss? The Terps will have some extra time to take goofy friendship pictures in Times Square. A win? We all meet right back at the Garden Thursday for the NIT championship game against either Baylor or BYU.
Will there be one more Nonconfriends to round out the year? Which highly religious school will win the other NIT semifinal? Only one way to find out: Keep coming back to diamondbackonline.com and follow @dbksports for all the updates. Until then, keep your friends close and your Nonconfriends closer.
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