The Hawkeye men are heading to Brooklyn, New York as seventh seed in the Southeast Regional to face tenth seed Temple Friday in the first round of the N-C-A-A Basketball Tournament. Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery knows Temple very well. “Temple is a terrific program, Fran Duffy has built a great program there. He knows what he is doing, he’s been successful for a number of years,” McCaffery says. “He’s a very good friend of mine. I have tremendous respect for him and the job he has done, they’ll challenge us in every way.”

Iowa had a late season skid, but the players say they are together and will be ready to play. McCaffery says that is critical, and he’s not surprised they would say that, especially the seniors. “They’ve been together from the beginning, it’s been an interesting journey. Not just this year — but you go back to when they got here. They were very much a part of building a consistent winner,” McCaffery says. He says the team has battled through a lot this season.

“We’ve had winning streaks, we’ve had losing streakes, but they have remained together. We have stuck with those guys because we know the character that they have, they talent that they have,” McCaffery says. “We just have to make sure in this setting you take care of rebounding, you take care of the basketball, you move the ball. You give your team every chance to win the game.”

The Hawkeyes had been touted at one point as possibly being a high seed and playing in Des Moines, but that fell away with the losing skid, and a first-round loss in the Big 10 Tournament. Seniors Adam Woodbury of Sioux City, says it doesn’t matter where they play. “They could have sent us anywhere, we’ll be ready for the toss,” Woodbury says. The Hawkeyes haven’t played Temple this season, but Woodbury says that doesn’t make a lot of difference either.

“It goes both ways,” Woodbury says, “they are not as familiar with us either. It’s all about just trying to get a grasp of what they do offensively and defensively, and just just trying to get a grasp of their big keys.” Sophomore Dom Uhl is one player who is looking forward to going to New York. It’s where he played high school ball after coming from Germany. “I didn’t hope it would happen, it’s just kind of funny, because I was recruited by Temple too,” Uhl says. He expects it to be a good matchup.

Uhl says Temple is very talented and they will play hard. Iowa finished the season at 21-10 overall and 12-6 in the Big Ten. This is the Hawkeyes third straight N-C-A-A Tournament berth. The game will start at approximately 2:10 p.m.

(Learfield Sports)

The Northern Iowa Panthers are returning to the site of one of their biggest victories in school history, as they earned an 11 seed and a match-up in the N-C-A-A Basketball Tournament against sixth seed Texas Friday in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Panthers upset then top-ranked Kansas in the tournament in Oklahoma City their last time there as they advanced to the Sweet 16. Coach Ben Jacobson says it’s nice to go back.

“You know for some of us, it’s familiar,” Jacobson says, “And I think that’s good. They guys who are playing, they guys who really matter, they have not been there before. For some of us it’s nice to be able to go back there, but we’ve got a different team. Those guys haven’t been there,” Jacobson says. Jacobson says he’s only watched a few of the Longhorn’s games, but knows their coach Shaka Smart well from games against his former V-C-U team.

He says he doesn’t know enough about Smart’s Texas team to know if it is like his teams at V-C-U. Jacobson does like the Friday game over Thursday. “One of the things talking about about it all week and getting asked different questions… if I had my choice, I’d rather play on Friday,” Jacobson says. “You do have the extra day of prep, you have a little more time to make travel plans. It takes a little bit of the anxiety out of it because you’ve got that extra 24 hours to do the stuff on the front end.” He is happy with the 11 seed.

He says he thought they would be a 12 seed and would have been surprised to be a 13 seed, and is”mildly surprised” they are a 12. U-N-I had big wins over North Carolina and Iowa State in the non-conference, but started conference play at 2-6 and were 10-11 overall before going on a late season run and winning the M-V-C Tournament. Jacobson says the team has never stopped playing hard and pushing for a change to get back to the N-C-A-A’s.

“Now we didn’t play very good for two-and-a-half weeks, but even in this last six weeks, we have played like a team that’s got something to prove. So, I think that will absolutely be a part of what we do this week,” according to Jacobson. U-N-I is now 22-12. Texas was 20-12 and 11-7 in the Big 12 where they finished fourth.

(Learfield Sports)