There is so much more on the line than just advancing to the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament when Iowa plays Ohio State on Thursday in Minneapolis.
The loser of the second-round matchup between the No. 10 seed Buckeyes (19-12) and the seventh-seeded Hawkeyes (18-13) can likely start making plans for the NIT instead of keeping their hopes alive of making the NCAA Tournament.
“I think we have work to do,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. “We’ve got some really good wins in a very difficult league with good wins out of conference. It’s not something you kind of want to leave to chance. You want to do some more damage this week if we can.”
It’s a similar situation for Ohio State, although coach Jake Diebler feels a little more confident in the Buckeyes’ NCAA tourney chances after the current surge under his leadership. The Buckeyes have won four in a row and five of six since he replaced the fired Chris Holtmann on Feb. 14, including beating then-No. 2 Purdue in his debut.
“I’m no expert on all the metrics that go into making that decision, but I would think a couple of our top wins would stack up against anybody in the country. We’ve now stacked together some road wins,” Diebler said. “Also, the momentum that we have, and the way that we’ve been playing lately, I think there are a lot of positives that would help our case.”
Iowa is coming off a 73-61 loss to then-No. 12 Illinois on Sunday in the regular season finale, but it has won four of its past six games after dropping its first three Big Ten games.
“I would say we’ve had our backs against the wall pretty much since early December,” Hawkeyes forward Payton Sandfort said. “We’ve never quit, we’ve never given up and that’s why we’re in the position we are in with a week left. I don’t see why we would change that now.”
In the first meeting between the teams this season on Feb. 2, Iowa held off visiting Ohio State 79-77 as Tony Perkins’ 20 points led a balanced attack. Jamison Battle posted 17 points for the Buckeyes.
The winner plays No. 2 seed Illinois (23-8) on Friday.
