With four games in the men’s NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 remaining on Friday night, there is already one Cinderella story in the Elite Eight: No. 9-seeded Iowa.
After ousting Florida, the defending national champions in the second round, they did exactly what we predicted and defeated the No. 4 Nebraska Cornhuskers on Thursday night.
Next up, a familiar foe in No. 3-seeded Illinois. Cinderella may be sporting a new look, but she’s still in the dance.
No. 9 Iowa Hawkeyes vs. No. 3 Illinois Fighting Illini
Upset chance: 28.5 percent
To those saying Iowa isn’t an underdog or bracket breaker, shuck our stalks. We argued that the third matchup between conference foes, Iowa and Nebraska, was separated by just a few points per 100 possessions in our power ratings. The matchup was viewed as a coin flip.
However, we also said that the style clashes recognized by our statistical model would still shape the flow of that game. Well, against the Cornhuskers, Iowa slowed the pace of the game to perfection.
The Hawkeyes dragged Nebraska into a 60-possession game, even though the Cornhuskers shot well from behind the arc early and led for nearly 38 minutes. However, Nebraska couldn’t pull away, and Iowa made very few mistakes, outscoring Nebraska 20-7 on points off turnovers by putting together a 15-6 closing run.
The Hawkeyes also frustrated their higher-seeded opponent into uncharacteristically off-kilter play. Iowa drove into the gaps again and again in the second half, which wore down the Huskers. They shot just 6 of 24 on 3-pointers in that half and couldn’t adjust with fresh legs, losing the bench-scoring battle by 18 points.
Also, there was the critical play in the final seconds, when the game was still close, but the Huskers had only four players on the court defensively.
Iowa will now face another Big Ten squad that can safely be called an overdog. Illinois is the seventh-best team in the nation according to Slingshot, an offensive machine that loves to shoot 3-pointers (50.5 percent of its field-goal attempts). The Illini are also dominant on the offensive boards, grabbing 39.1 percent of their missed shots, including an astounding 43 percent of their missed 3-pointers.
Overall, Illinois is 10.1 points per 100 possessions stronger than Iowa in our power ratings. On Thursday night, Illinois locked down No. 2-seeded Houston defensively on the perimeter and at the rim, while outshooting the Cougars from 2-point and 3-point range.
However, Iowa will have chances to score because Illinois does not force turnovers, and the Hawkeyes keep showing that it’s hard for any opponent to run away from them.
Slingshot’s similarity analysis shows how to interpret all these facts in combination. Of the 10 games in our database that most resemble Illinois-Iowa, eight ended in wins for the favorite, and overall, the higher seeds outscore their opponents by a whopping 22.9 points per 100 possessions.
However, two second-round exceptions should ring some alarm bells: No. 8-seeded Butler over No. 1-seeded Pittsburgh in 2011 and No. 9-seeded Wichita State defeating No. 1-seeded Gonzaga in 2013. Both games involved smart, slower teams slaying national championship contenders who let their opponents hang around. So there’s always a chance.