Iowa basketball: Hawks prepare for #16 Ohio State Sunday

Two of the more surprising teams in the Big Ten face off Sunday when the #16 ranked Buckeyes take on the Iowa basketball team at Carver Hawkeye arena.

Prior to the season beginning, neither the Ohio State Buckeyes or the Iowa basketball program sat near the top-25. Yet, after a few weeks of college basketball, the Buckeyes were 12-1 and the Hawkeyes were undefeated with two “quality” wins over Oregon and UConn. Things haven’t exactly taken a huge turn for the worse since, but these two teams have fallen slightly back to where they should have been.

The Buckeyes coming off two straight losses including one to Big Ten bottom-dweller Rutgers looks to avoid a three-game losing streak that would likely not them out of the top-25. Iowa, meanwhile, is looking to extend their winning streak to three after beating Nebraska and Northwestern this past week.

With the Big Ten being so strong this year, every single game matters for NCAA positioning, and the Hawks are in a good spot returning to Carver where they 10-1 this season and hold an analytical competitive advantage. According to KenPom, Iowa’s home court advantage is 13th best in the nation, but keep in mind the context of these analytics. They are looking purely at how well the Hawks do on the road vs at home, not how tough of an arena Carver can be to play in. Either way though, Iowa’s struggles away from Carver are fascinating, and in a game against a strong Ohio State team they can use all of the help they can get.

I expect for the Ohio State game, the Iowa basketball team will be returning their starting front court duo to the lineup. Garza, who missed two games due to injury, has come of the bench the last two but played starter-like minutes against Northwestern. Star forward Tyler Cook, on the other hand, was a surprise no-go decision against Northwestern due to a sore knee.

Both of these guys will be crucial going against a relatively undersized Buckeye basketball team. Starting for Ohio State in the front court is 6’9” Kaleb Wessen, who leads the team in scoring and rebounding with 17.1 ppg and 6.3 rpg, and 6’8” Kyle Young, who sixth on the team in scoring and second in rebounding with 7.5 points and 4.9 rebounds. After these two though, only one of the next five guys in the lineup is over 6’3” (6’6” forward Andre Wessen). This will also help out Iowa’s guards, especially Jordan Bohannon who struggled against Northwestern’s size scoring just eight points on 2 of 7 shooting.

Offensively, the Buckeyes are 7th in the conference averaging 76.8 points per game on 47% shooting, and they are relatively balanced offense that likes to slow the tempo down (their average possession length is 224th in the nation, meaning they hold on to the ball longer than 223 other teams). Like Iowa though, Ohio State is effective at getting to the free throw line and converting as 21% of their overall points come from the charity stripe.

Defensively, Ohio State plays mostly man defense, and they do it pretty effectively. Their 63.7 points per game allowed is 29th best in the nation and according to KenPom, their defensive efficiency margin is 30th in the nation. While they are great at limiting overall scoring, they are susceptible to foul trouble (they rank 208th in the nation in fouls per game with 18.5), they don’t force many turnovers and they aren’t strong rim protectors.

This bodes well for an Iowa basketball team that has shown they can disrupt the opposing team’s game plan by putting the in foul trouble. It worked against a strong Nebraska defense, and it worked against Northwestern.

This game is scheduled to tip off at 1:30 PM Central Standard Time at Carver Hawkeye Arena, and it will be aired on the Big Ten Network. As it stands right now, the Hawks are favored ever so slightly by both ESPN (58%) and KenPom (57%). A win here would continue the positive momentum that has been built so far as the Iowa basketball team’s matchup against #6 Michigan State looms ahead in two weeks.