The Iowa Hawkeyes aren’t expected to be a giant in the college basketball world, but the program has shown under numerous coaches that it can reach a relatively lofty place in the sport — not the top tier, but in a very solid and respectable second tier below the heavyweights. No, Iowa shouldn’t be expected to be Michigan State or Ohio State, but it is hard to deny the sense that it should be a little more dependable than it has been under Fran McCaffery.
Iowa, to be very clear, is a hard-to-peg Big Ten program. It doesn’t have the access to big-city talent other league schools enjoy. It doesn’t have a towering reputation, but it does have an appreciably impressive basketball tradition developed by Ralph Miller, Lute Olson, and Tom Davis, three great college basketball coaches. If one is to ask about the big challenge facing Iowa basketball in the 2020s, you will probably get many different responses and many different standards. Some will say Iowa ought to be making more Sweet 16s — it has made none under McCaffery. Some will say Iowa needs to get higher NCAA seeds. The highest under Fran is No. 7. Those are good answers.
To me, however, the ultimate challenge facing Iowa basketball is this: Can it make the NCAA Tournament a high percentage of the time? That gets at the sense of underachievement in Iowa City more than anything else.
If you look at Iowa under Fran McCaffery, you will note that the Hawkeyes have missed the NCAAs five times in nine seasons. Sweet 16s are good, and more high seeds will likely translate to a Sweet 16, but before Iowa tackles those bigger goals, the Hawkeyes simply have to get to the Big Show more often. Wisconsin is a really good role model here. The Badgers wouldn’t always thrive under Bo Ryan in the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, but they were always there. One of those years, they were bound to do better, and they did occasionally climb higher.
Wisconsin fans won’t mind if Iowa continues to stumble… but if Iowa wants to reach a specific level of quality in the coming decade, it needs to give itself more chances in March.