March Madness – (10) Davidson vs. (7) Iowa
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:40 am ESTPublished:
(10) Davidson Wildcats vs. (7) Iowa Hawkeyes (-2, 145.5 o/u)
After losing to the VCU Rams in the Atlantic 10 tournament semifinals, the No. 10 Davidson Wildcats (24-7, 14-4 A 10) will meet the Iowa Hawkeyes (21-11, 12-6 Big Ten) in Round of 64 today (7:20 PM Eastern at KeyArena in Seattle).
The 93-73 loss against the Rams ended a ten-game winning streak for the high-scoring Wildcats, who averaged the sixth-most points in the nation this year (79.9 PPG).
Davidson finished the season 24-7 and scoring the six most points per game in the country, with 79.9 every night.
Iowa coach Fran McCaffery knows the Wildcats scorers will present a challenge for his defense-first squad.
“There are certain characteristics that are consistent and [Davidson coach Bob McKillop’s] teams can be different from year to year, obviously,” said McCaffery. “They’re going to shoot 3s, they’re going to shoot it well, they don’t turn it over. They compete; they play hard defensively, on the glass. They typically play fast; they score the ball. They move it down the floor. They’re going to try to score the ball via both the fast break and shooting a lot of 3s. But I have a lot of respect for him. I coached against him a lot of times.”
Iowa was upset by Penn State in the first round of the Big Ten tournament and saw their stock fall, winding up as a No. 7 seed despite finishing the Big Ten regular season with a solid 12-6 mark.
As in most of the team’s losses this year, the Hawkeyes offense let them down against Penn State, mustering just 58 points on a dreadful 26-percent shooting. Leading scorer Aaron White (16.0 PPG, 7.5 RPG) kept the Hawkeyes competitive, scoring 21 points (on 5/13 shooting) and adding 13 boards in the loss.
Like Davidson, Iowa’s loss in its conference tournament halted an impressive run; the Hawkeyes had won six in a row before falling to the Nittany Lions.
The odds currently have Iowa as a two-point favorite and the over/under is at 145.5 points.
Turning to the trends, the Wildcats are 4-1 ATS in their last five NCAA Tournament games as an underdog, while the Hawkeyes are 0-5 ATS in their last five neutral site games as a favorite.
(Photo credit: Geoffrey Fairchild (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
