Men's Basketball Breakdown: Iowa vs. Syracuse
Breaking down Tuesday's ACC/Big Ten Challenge game between Iowa and Syracuse.
Game facts
Time and place — 6 p.m. (CST), Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.
TV — ESPN2 (Bob Wischusen, play-by-play; Jon Crispin, analyst)
Radio — Hawkeye Radio Network
Records — Iowa 5-2, Syracuse 4-3
Rankings — Neither team is ranked.
Series — Iowa leads 2-1.
The lineups
Iowa — Luka Garza (C, 6-11, Jr., 19.6 ppg.), Jordan Bohannon (G, 6-1, Sr., 8.5 ppg.), Connor McCaffery (G, 6-5, Soph., 7.4 ppg.), CJ Fredrick (G, 6-3, Fr., 11.1 ppg.), Joe Wieskamp (G, 6-6, Soph., 10.9 ppg.)
Syracuse — Bourama Sidibe (F, 6-10, Jr., 6.3 ppg.), Joseph Girard III (G, 6-1, Fr., 10.1 ppg.), Elijah Hughes (G, 6-6, Jr., 19 ppg.), Buddy Boeheim (G, 6-6, Soph., 13.4 ppg.) Marek Dolezaj (G, 6-10, Jr., 8.4 ppg.)
The analytics
KenPom — Iowa 48th, Syracuse 54th
Sagarin — Iowa 48th, Syracuse 67th
Fast facts
• All of the games between Iowa and Syracuse have been on neutral courts.
• Iowa is 6-12 in ACC/Big Ten Challenge games. Only one of the wins has come on the road, in 2015 at North Carolina.
What to watch
The Hawkeyes went with a smaller lineup in the Las Vegas Invitational, and it paid off with a win over Texas Tech in Thursday's semifinal.
The Orange are coming off losses to Oklahoma State and Penn State in the NIT Season Tipoff. The two defeats were by a combined 35 points.
Still, Syracuse's zone defense could present some problems for the Hawkeyes, particularly if they're not shooting well from the outside. Iowa had 20 3-pointers in the two games in Las Vegas, but made just three in the second half of Friday's loss against San Diego State.
"It's a challenge for your team to attack," Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said of Syracuse's defense. "We've got to be ready to compete. I thought we competed well in Las Vegas. You need the same effort against Syracuse at the Carrier Dome. You know what you're facing, you know what the tradition is there."
"It's a great opportunity for us."
Syracuse's zone features length — Hughes and Boeheim are both 6-6 guards.
"They're really good at (the zone) because the players (coach Jim Boeheim) recruits fit that style, both offensively and defensively," McCaffery said. "They play (the zone) all of the time, and they have really good chemistry with each other."
