#2 Iowa vs. #7 Oregon Odds
How Oregon & Iowa Match Up
| All stats via KenPom. | ||
What To Know About Iowa
The Iowa offense is among the best in college basketball because it has a dominant big man in Luka Garza, along with one of the best 3-point shooting rates in the country. Garza is likely to be the National Player of the Year, and the big man is surrounded by players who can light it up from deep.
The Hawkeyes are in the top-five nationally in 3-point percentage, an attack led by guards Joe Wieskamp (48.9% 3-point shooting), Jordan Bohannon (39.7%) and CJ Fredrick (50%).
The loss of Jack Nunge hurts a bit, but it appears that Fredrick and Wieskamp are fully healthy, which makes this one of the best offenses in college basketball. The biggest Iowa storyline over the past month has been a defensive resurgence, which is almost unheard of from this Hawkeyes program.
Iowa skyrocketed up the defensive metric boards over the final month of the regular season and is one spot outside of the top-50 in Kenpom's adjusted defensive efficiency. Iowa will mix it up quite a bit defensively with a press periodically and lots of zone looks, and the communication has been much better in both regards of late.
If the Hawkeyes can continue this recent defensive form into and throughout the tournament, this is a Final Four-caliber team. The defense doesn't need to be elite: If they can just play at a top-50 level instead of a top-100 one, look out. — Matt Trebby
What To Know About Oregon
Prior to their loss to rival Oregon State in the Pac -12 tournament, the Ducks were playing outstanding basketball. Some of their season-long metrics are a bit depressed as a result of injuries, but the on-court product once they got all of their pieces back looked very promising. That's especially true on the offensive end, where Oregon ranks in the 88th percentile nationally in terms of points per possession, per Synergy.
The Ducks start five upper-classmen who are all effcient on that end of the floor. That said, the defense is nowhere close to the level of the offense, especially in the interior, where they really miss the length of N'Faly Dante, who is out for the year.
The Ducks are very vulnerable against elite post players. But this is still a Dana Altman-led team. That means they will be tough to prepare for in a tournament setting. Altman will press a bunch and switch between man and zone looks in the half court.
Given the right draw, Oregon has the offensive firepower to make a run even with some of its defensive deficiencies. — Stuckey
