A Big Ten West Game for a Final Four Slot: Elite Eight, Saturday Edition

Remember when?

The year was 2016, and Iowa was set to face Illinois. It was a crisp, blustery November day.

To open the first half, Iowa kicked off to the Lovie Smith-led Illini…

…and then, to open the second half, Iowa did the same thing.

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Illinois never kicked–but punted 10 times–in that 28-0 shutout loss to the Hawkeyes. It was an ignominious start to the Smith tenure, and par for the course in the lore of Kirk Ferentz at Iowa.

The Illini would finish 3-9 (2-7); the Hawkeyes, 8-5 (6-3).

What got me thinking about that game was not just the myriad hilarities of Iowa and Illinois throughout the years (surely some people are also screaming about Bruce Pearl), but how Iowa has this uncanny ability to bring out the worst in everybody (including Iowans).

In some of the press surrounding the South Region’s Elite Eight, Iowa HC Ben McCollum received questions asking if he was the Curt Cignetti of college basketball.

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McCollum’s response? “I’m more of a Kirk guy.”

Great optics and soundbites aside, it’s absolutely been a truth of Iowa basketball in the NCAA Tournament: they are going to take what you do best away. To wit:

Matthew Winick (@matthewwinick)

No wonder he calls himself a Kirk guy.

Whether that can play out again today in the Elite Eight game between the Hawkeyes and the Illinois Fighting Illini seems less sure to me. The Illini are playing their best ball at the right time, and they proved stifling at Iowa this season, frustrating Bennett Stirtz and Cooper Koch in a 75-69 win.

No doubt McCollum has schemed for Illinois: it’s just that the Illini can throw bodies and tempo at you in ways few other teams in the NCAA Tournament can. Keaton Wagler and the entire Warsaw Pact appears arrayed against Iowa in such a way that I expect Illinois to dominate the glass and force Iowa into a lights-out shooting night.

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Of course, perhaps that’s exactly what Ben McCollum has planned.

in the night’s remaining festivities, Purdue is…

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Publish date : 2026-03-28 19:39:00

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