Big Ten Basketball: Ranking all 18 programs after adding Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington
By Joey Loose
12. Iowa
The Big Ten is a great basketball conference but there’s only so much success in the league. Only one team can win each game after all, though Iowa has done a great job of doing that under Fran McCaffery for the last thirteen years. Iowa only recently had a national player of the year in Luka Garza on campus and have continued to bring talented names to Iowa City.
The Hawkeyes have appeared in the last four NCAA Tournaments and in seven of the last nine. 20-win seasons have been a regular occurrence for the Hawkeyes, though deep runs in the Big Dance have not been an occurrence at all. Sure, there’s success deep in their history, but McCaffery hasn’t yet made a Sweet Sixteen in his 13 years.
You can count on Iowa to be a decent contender in this league, having finished at or above .500 in conference play in ten of the last eleven seasons. They also have a knack for finding and developing talented players close to home, but is it enough? Iowa isn’t going to find a Garza or Keegan Murray every season and they still haven’t made any headway to prove themselves as an elite program.
It’s also worth considering that this program was in pretty rough shape when McCaffery was hired, and as we’ve seen at other Big Ten schools the wrong hire could really cost you in a league like this. McCaffery isn’t going anywhere and Iowa should remain a consistent program, but will we soon see that one special team that can actually make a dent in the Big Dance?