On Selection Sunday, things went according to plan for the now three-peat Big Ten Tournament champion Iowa Hawkeyes. They secured the No. 1 seed in the Albany 2 Region, holding top billing in a region for the first time since 1992 and the third time in program history. Not only that, but they also will host the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament for the third-consecutive year.
All this comes as the Hawkeyes are poised to meet, if not exceed, expectations by going back to the Final Four and, perhaps, contending for the national title. This go around, however, is a bit different in that their region will consist of a mixture of familiar opponents and potential new challengers, possibly leading to more competitiveness than expected.
The region features the likes of No. 3-seed LSU, No. 4-seed Kansas State, No. 5-seed Colorado, No. 6-seed Louisville, No. 7-seed Creighton and No. 12-seed Drake, all of which are teams Iowa has played against at some point in recent program history. Then, there is No. 2-seed UCLA, No. 8-seed West Virginia, No. 9-seed Princeton and No. 10-seed UNLV. The Hawkeyes haven’t played those programs in recent memory, but head coach Lisa Bluder most looks forward to potentially playing them, saying:
I like a new challenge to be quite…
