NCAA Basketball: 2023 Rady Children’s Invitational preview, predictions

Iowa

Iowa enters the 2023 Rady Children’s Invitational at 3-1 with their lone loss coming on the road against Greg McDermott’s Creighton BlueJays. In typical Iowa fashion, Fran McCaffery’s club has deployed elite offensive execution, averaging 95.0 points per game in their first four games. Valparaiso transfer Ben Krikke leads the Hawkeyes in scoring with 20 points per game and the Hawkeyes have gotten solid play from their experienced trio of Patrick McCaffery, Payton Sandfort and Tony Perkins as well.

Although Iowa has had some struggles defensively — specifically in their loss against Creighton — this year’s team has utilized its freshman core (Owen Freeman, Ladji Dembele, Brock Harding and Pryce Sandfort) alongside sophomore Josh Dix to be able to go 10 deep — an asset that McCaffery will certainly make use of when the Hawkeyes take on Oklahoma on Thursday.

Oklahoma

Porter Moser’s club has quietly started 4-0 — albeit against inferior competition —  with blowout victories over Central Michigan, Mississippi Valley State, Texas State and UT-Rio Grande Valley, respectively. In the non-conference play for many power conference teams, the focus is not always if you win, it’s how you win, where the Sooners come into the 2023 Rady Children’s Invitational with a margin of victory of 33 points.

This year’s Oklahoma squad is far more physical and athletic than the past two Moser-led teams, highlighted by strong play from sophomore Otega Oweh (15.3 PPG, 5.3 RPG), Siena transfer Javian McCollum (12.0 PPG) and Pitt transfer John Hugley (11.8 PPG, 6.0 RPG). Similar to Iowa, one of the Sooner’s strong assets this year is their depth —  with players like Georgia Tech transfer Jalon Moore, Oregon transfer Rivaldo Soares, and Utah Valley transfer Le’Tre Darthard able to play an instant-impact role off the bench.

With tougher competition on the horizon, it will be interesting to see how the Sooners’ depth matches up both physically and athletically — and this weekend will be an opportunity to prove that the Sooners are moving in the right direction in year three of the Porter Moser era.