Oregon Basketball: What we know about No. 2 seed Iowa

Dana Altman and the Oregon basketball team have moved on to the second round of the NCAA Tournament to face Iowa. What do we know about the Hawkeyes?

It’s not the way they wanted to advance, but Dana Altman and the Ducks are now officially in the round of 32, gearing up for an early matchup with No. 2 seed Iowa on Monday.

The Ducks will face the Hawkeyes at 9:10 a.m. PT on Monday which will probably stymy production at work for a lot of people on the West Coast hoping to see Oregon advance to another Sweet 16.

Beating Iowa won’t be easy, though.

The Big Ten has been underwhelming in this year’s NCAA Tournament after a solid regular season in which it was considered the best conference in the country. No. 1 seed Illinois was toppled by eighth-seeded Loyola, No. 2 seed Ohio State was shocked in the first round by Oral Roberts, UCLA came back to beat Michigan State in the First Four game and Purdue was shocked in the opening round by North Texas.

Upsets happen so it’s hard to say the Big Ten is overrated, but a No. 1 seed, a No. 2 seed and a No. 4 seed losing in the first two rounds was not a good look.

Oregon will have to face one of the toughest teams from the conference as the second No. 2 seed. The Hawkeyes are 22-8 after beating Grand Canyon in the first round and they finished the regular season as the No. 3 team in the Big Ten standings, just 1.5 games behind Michigan.

This game won’t be easy.

What do we know about Iowa?

As someone who has watched a lot of Big Ten basketball this season, I can say that Iowa probably has the best offense in the conference. When the Hawkeyes are on, they’re scary.

The Hawkeyes average 83.8 points per game which is good for ninth in the country and 19.1 assists per game which is the best in the country. Besides being the best passing team and an elite scoring team, their defense improved throughout the season but can still be vulnerable, at times.

Fran McCaffery gives just about every one of his guys the green light to shoot from deep. Iowa shoots about 39 percent from 3-point range and just about everyone on the roster has the ability to make shots from anywhere on the floor. The range is scary which includes the bigs.

Iowa lives and dies by the 3-pointer a lot, but if that shot’s not falling, the Hawkeyes drop the ball in to national player of the year finalist Luka Garza. He averages 23.7 points and 8.7 rebounds per game while shooting 54 percent from the floor and he can even step out and hit threes, making 43 percent from long-range.

When Garza’s having an off-game, the guy to watch out for is Joe Wieskamp. The talented wing makes about 47 percent of his 3-point tries and averages 14.8 points per game. When he gets hot, there’s almost no stopping him.

Jordan Bohannon is another deep threat along with CJ Fredrick.

Connor McCaffery, Fran’s son, runs the point quite a bit and he’s solid with the ball in his hands but he’s not a huge scoring threat. He’s not a shooter but can draw fouls while attacking the hoop. His brother, Patrick McCaffery, can be sneaky on the offensive end and he’s just growing as a player.

This team plays about eight deep after losing big man Jack Nunge for the season so the Hawkeyes don’t have a ton of size outside of Garza. That should play into Oregon’s favor.

Oregon can beat the Hawkeyes, but locking down the perimeter needs to be priority No. 1.