With the start of March Madness the state of Iowa went in with three teams making the official D1 bracket. Iowa State went in as a two seed with not too much to worry
about. On the other hand Iowa and UNI came in with lower seeds, Iowa being a nine and UNI being a twelve. The last time these three schools made the tournament together was over a decade ago in 2015.
During the first round Iowa state walked through Tennessee State with a dominant 108-74 victory led by Freshman Killyan Toure. Iowa also got a closer 67-61 win over Clemson led by Senior transfer Bennett Stirtz. Unfortunately, UNI could not get the upset done and lost to a very under looked Saint Johns fifth seeded team.
When talking to Kyle Linderbaum who is going to college at Iowa State this fall, he shared, “Watching those boys perform like that does makes me feel a lot of pride that I get to call myself a future cyclone. It’s great to know I’ll get to be a part of a school with a great basketball program.”
With Iowa and Iowa state moving on it was already an accomplishment for both teams. The University of Iowa had a battle in front of them taking on the region’s top ranked team, and last year’s champions the Florida Gators. Going into the game the gators were 10.5 point favorites. Most Iowa fans were filled with doubt but lots of hope, ready to cheer on their Hawkeyes although a 19 hour drive stood between them.
Asking University of Iowa enthusiast Boston Wolford his thoughts on the game he shared, “I saw last year’s champions which is always nerve wracking. I thought that Florida was the worst first seed out of them all. The chance I thought Iowa had was about 40%. I really believed it would come down to the second half.”
Through, at the start of the game you could tell Iowa came in with more fight leading the Florida gators by two at halftime. Later on in the game, the Hawkeyes took a big lead but with around eight minutes left the gators came crawling back. Iowa ended up down two with just eight seconds left and everyone knew they were going to need a miracle. With 4.4 seconds left Alvaro Floguerias hit a crazy three to go up by one. After a great defensive stop, the Hawkeyes moved on and took down number one Florida.
Asking Jacob Bennett his thoughts on the moment he stated “I was at a local restaurant and that last minute you could feel the tension. You could hear everyone go dead silent then it erupted. It was the best feeling ever that it was finally our time to go and now we play our biggest rival for the elite eight.”
On the other hand Iowa state was facing seven seed Kentucky. This may have seemed like an easy win for the clones but just three minutes into the previous game star player Joshua Jefferson came down and sprained his left ankle. Iowa State was rolling before losing Jefferson and many State fans weren’t too worried about the game. With a slow start to the first half versus Kentucky, shooting very poorly from the field you could tell the Cyclones were missing Jefferson. When the second half started you could tell the clones had lit a fire in the locker room where they came out at the half shooting the ball significantly better. Four year senior Tamin Lipsey had his best game of his career with 26 points and eight rebounds. Along with Lipsey’s success the clones forced 20 turnovers pushing them past Kentucky by a score of 82-63.
Junior Jackson Stanford is a big Iowa State and had this to say about the sweet 16 game, “The game was kind of how I expected being slow on offense without Jefferson but figuring it out. I’m pretty optimistic about our game against Tennessee with one without Jefferson just because of how we’ve been playing recently.”
With both the Hawkeyes and the Cyclones making the sweet 16 this is something that has never happened before. The Cyclones last made the sweet 16 just a couple years ago in 2024 but for Iowa it is the first time in the 21st century where the Hawkeyes made it this far in the bracket Make sure to tune into the games this Thursday and Friday to watch both these Iowa University’s teams compete for their chance at an elite eight appearance.
