Iowa will play Temple in first round of NCAA Tournament
IOWA CITY, Iowa – The road to redemption for the struggling Iowa men’s basketball team will begin against Temple in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The game, matching a seven seed against a 10-seed, will be played at the Barclays Center on Friday in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Iowa will be the No. 7 seed, which probably isn’t what fans had envisioned a month ago when the Hawkeyes were 10-1 in the Big Ten and ranked among the nation’s elite.
But it’s still an NCAA Tournament berth, which is hardly automatic for the Hawkeyes, who will limp to the dance after losing six of their last eight games, including a 68-66 loss to No. 12 seed Illinois in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament this past Thursday.
In fact, this marks the first time since a three-year stretch from 1991-93 that Iowa will make three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.
Iowa also has a chance to win an NCAA Tournament game in back-to-back seasons for the first time since the 1995-96 and 1996-97 campaigns. Iowa won an NCAA Tournament game last season for the first time since 2001, defeating Davidson 83-52 in the first round.
Fran McCaffery now has led Iowa to a postseason tournament in five of his six seasons as head coach. Iowa played in the National Invitation Tournament in McCaffery’s second and third seasons, finishing runner-up to Baylor in 2013.
The NCAA Tournament is the last chance for Iowa’s four senior starters – forward Jarrod Uthoff, center Adam Woodbury and guards Anthony Clemmons and Mike Gesell – to end the current skid.