The Iowa men’s basketball team will face Cincinnati on Friday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Columbus, Ohio
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – For the fourth time in the last six years, Fran McCaffery experienced the thrill of hearing Iowa’s name announced as part of the NCAA Tournament field.
The Iowa players and coaches were watching on television when it was announced late Sunday afternoon that the Hawkeyes would face Cincinnati in the first round on Friday at 11:15 a.m. in Columbus, Ohio.
Iowa is seeded 10th in the East Regional and has a 22-11 overall record, while the Bearcats are the seventh seed and 28-6 overall.
“A tremendous defensive team that prides themselves on defensive effort and intensity, and they can score, too,” McCaffery said of Cincinnati. “They’ve got good players. Not many programs win close to thirty (games) every year and they’ve been doing that. So that’s a credit to them.
“It’s a challenge that we look forward to.”
It is a challenge that could go a long way in determining how this Iowa team is perceived by its own fan base.
One game shouldn’t define a season that includes more than 30 games. But should Iowa prevail on Friday, it’ll be a lot more difficult to label this Iowa team as an underachieving failure or to feed the Fran Fade narrative.
But should Iowa lose to the talented Bearcats on Friday, this once-promising season will be remembered mostly for having the latest meltdown under McCaffery.
Iowa has lost five of its last six games and that has caused some Hawkeye fans to lose faith in the team.
Iowa wasn’t thought to be on the NCAA Tournament bubble with 22 victories, but it was moving in that direction as evidenced by having dropped to a No. 10 seed.
ESPN bracket insider Joe Lunardi had Iowa projected as a No. 8 seed, but he apparently underestimated the damage caused by Iowa’s struggles down the stretch.
McCaffery dismissed any talk of being disappointed with Iowa’s seed because it was lower than some had expected.
“Nobody pays any attention to that,” McCaffery said. “Nobody.”
A reporter then tried to provide some levity by sarcastically asking McCaffery if he followed Lunardi’s projections every day.
“I like Joe, he’s a good man,” McCaffery said. “He’s made a living doing this. Good for him. He figured it out. God bless him. He’s a good dude.”
Friday’s game will be the second time that Iowa has faced Cincinnati in the NCAA Tournament, and the ninth time overall. The Bearcats lead the series 6-2 and they defeated Iowa 76-64 in the first round of the 2005 NCAA Tournament at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis.
Cincinnati was quick and athletic back then under former head coach Bob Huggins and nothing has changed 14 years later under current head coach Mick Cronin, who Fran McCaffery considers a friend.
The Bearcats defeated Houston 69-57 on Sunday to win the American Athletic Conference Tournament for the second year in a row.
Junior guard Jarron Cumberland led way in the title game with 33 points and eight rebounds.
McCaffery is familiar with the 6-foot-5 Cumberland after having offered him a scholarship during the recruiting process.
“Jarron Cumberland is a tremendous player,” McCaffery said of the Ohio native. “Versatile, and I think as good as he was then, I think he’s even better now. I think he’s really continued to improve in particular as a scorer.
“He’s always been able to do a lot of things athletically at both ends. But he’s really become an incredibly consistent player.”
Iowa, on the other hand, has been plagued by a lack of consistency from all of its players.
Junior forward Tyler Cook leads Iowa in both scoring and rebounding, but he failed to score in double figures in each of the final two regular-season games, including being held scoreless at Wisconsin.
Junior point guard Jordan Bohannon also was held scoreless for just fourth time in his career during Friday’s 74-53 loss to Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament.
But despite the inconsistency and the late-season skid, Iowa still accomplished enough as a team to earn a spot in the Big Dance for the first time in three years.
And with that comes an opportunity to change how this up-and-down team will be remembered.
You'd like to think that making the NCAA Tournament would be enough for this team to be remembered in a positive light, especially after what happened last season when Iowa finished 14-19 overall and 4-14 in the Big Ten.
But that apparently isn't the case with some fans who are reluctant to call this season a success due to the struggles down the stretch.
The Iowa players recently decided to stay off Twitter in order to avoid the outside noise and the distractions that come with it.
“We just need to prepare properly,” McCaffery said. “This is a very business-like group. They appreciate the opportunity and they know what it means. And I have no question that they’ll focus and lock into what we need to teach in terms of the game plan and getting ready for a game on Friday.
“That’s one of the reasons you compete. You want to play in this tournament at some point. But in our league, every time you play you’re playing somebody really good. So that prepares you for this opportunity.”
Senior forward Nicholas Baer is the only current Hawkeye who has played in the NCAA Tournament. He was a redshirt freshman reserve for Iowa’s 2015-16 squad that lost to Villanova 87-68 in the second round.
“It was always a little different,” Baer said of preparing for and NCAA Tournament game. “You’ve got to do a bunch of different things that you’re probably not used to playing before a game.
“But at the same time, these guys have been ready for this opportunity their whole lives. This is what you came here to play in and this is something that we’re always looking forward to.”
Playing in the NCAA Tournament is an opportunity more than anything else, and the Hawkeyes have earned that opportunity.
The circumstances might not be ideal with Iowa struggling and with Cincinnati playing in its home state.
But a victory on Friday would go a long way in changing how this Iowa team is remembered.
“I said as soon as our name was announced this was kind of what we’ve been working for since April,” said Tyler Cook. “We knew that we’d be in the tournament. Just seeing our name up on that screen and hearing them say the Iowa Hawkeyes was pretty special.”
It'll be even more special if Cook and his cohorts can make some noise in the tournament.
"It'll be tough," Cook said of playing Cincinnati in Ohio. "I was kind of hoping that we'd be sent to San Jose or something like that. That would have been really nice.
"But you've got to play the game regardless of where we're at. We just have to make sure that we're locked in and playing the best basketball that we can play."
Cook would have preferred San Jose because of the weather, but just being the NCAA Tournament for the first time as Hawkeye is a reward in itself.
"Who wouldn't want to go to (California)," Cook said. "I guess Ohio is not too bad."
This season marks the 20-year anniversary of Iowa's last trip to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 in 1999.
Few expected it to happen back then and the circumstances are similar now.
But it starts with an opportunity, and Iowa has that opportunity.