IOWA CITY, Iowa – With Caitlin Clark announcing on Thursday that she will enter the 2024 WNBA draft, and with the Iowa women preparing to face No. 2 Ohio State on Sunday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, it’s easy to overlook the challenge and the opportunity facing the Iowa men’s basketball team on Saturday.

Fran McCaffery’s squad will face Northwestern at Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston with a chance to climb above .500 in Big Ten play for the first time this season, and with a chance to pick up another Quad 1 victory.

Iowa (17-12, 9-9 Big Ten) has won three of its last four games and is 5-3 since the start of February, while third-place Northwestern (20-8, 11-6) has won three straight games and five of its last six.

Iowa is trying to make the NCAA Tournament for the fifth straight season, while Northwestern is trying to make the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons for the first time in program history.

So, in other words, there is a lot riding on Saturday’s game for both teams.

Iowa will then have a week off before it faces Illinois on March 10 on Senior Day at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Northwestern is 8-0 at home in Big Ten play and 14-1 overall. The Wildcats’ lone loss came against Chicago State, 75-73, on Dec. 13.

Senior guard Boo Buie, who recently became Northwestern’s all-time leading scorer with 2,062 career points, leads the Wildcats with an 18.6 scoring average to rank fourth in the league. He also leads the team and is third in the Big Ten with 66 3-pointers, shooting 41 percent, and averages 5.2 assists per game.

The Wildcats are second in the Big Ten in 3-point field goal percentage (39 percent) and fourth in 3-point makes, averaging 8.2 per game.

Northwestern leads the league and ranks sixth nationally, averaging nine turnovers per game and the Wildcats have the second-best assist-to-turnover ratio (1.75) to in the league (sixth nationally).

Chris Collins is in his 11th season as the Northwestern head coach, and a strong case could be made for him being the Big Ten Coach of the Year this season. Collins is the only coach to lead Northwestern to the NCAA Tournament.

His current team has kept winning despite being without senior guard Ty Berry, who is out for the remainder of the season with a torn meniscus.

As for Fran McCaffery’s Iowa squad, a win Saturday in Evanston would give Iowa at least 10 Big Ten victories for the ninth time in the last 10 seasons.

Junior Payton Sandfort posted the first triple-double in program history, finishing with 26 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and three blocks in a win over Penn State on Feb. 27. It was the first 25-10-10-3 game in regulation since Marquette’s Dwyane Wade did so against top-ranked Kentucky in the 2003 NCAA Tournament.

Iowa is the only Division I school in the last 25 years to have a 25-point triple-double by a women’s player (Caitlin Clark) and
men’s player (Payton) in the same season.

This is the only meeting between Iowa and Northwestern in the regular season.

Iowa (17-12, 9-9) vs Northwestern (20-8, 11-6)

When: Saturday, 4:31 p.m.

Where: Evanston, Illinois, Welsh-Ryan Arena (7,039)

TV: Big Ten Network

Radio: Hawkeye Radio Network

All-time series: Saturday’s game is the 186th meeting in the all-time series that began in 1905 in Evanston. The Hawkeyes lead, 124-61.

The Wildcats snapped a nine-game losing streak in the series with an 80-60 win on Feb. 19, 2023, in Evanston. It was Northwestern’s first win in the series since 2017.

Hawkeyesports.com contributed to this report