Men's Basketball Breakdown: Iowa vs. Nebraska
Breaking down Saturday's game between Iowa and Nebraska.
Game facts
Time and place — 5:07 p.m. (CST), Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Iowa City
TV — BTN (Kevin Kugler, play-by-play; Stephen Bardo, analyst)
Radio — Hawkeye Radio Network
Records — Iowa 16-7 (7-5 Big Ten), Nebraska 7-15 (2-9)
Rankings — Iowa is No. 17 in the Associated Press poll and the USA Today coaches poll.
Series — Iowa leads, 20-13.
Earlier this season — Nebraska won, 76-70, on Jan. 7 in Lincoln, Neb.
The lineups
Iowa — Joe Wieskamp (F, 6-6, Soph., 14.8 ppg.), Luka Garza (C, 6-11, Jr., 23.2 ppg.), Joe Toussaint (G, 6-0, Fr., 6.7 ppg.), CJ Fredrick (G, 6-3, Fr., 11.5 ppg.), Connor McCaffery (G, 6-5, Soph., 6 ppg.)
Nebraska — Yvan Ouedraogo (F, 6-9, Fr., 5.4 ppg.), Cam Mack (G, 6-2, Soph., 13 ppg.), Dachon Burke (G, 6-4, Jr., 11.4 ppg.), Haanif Cheatham (G, 6-5, Sr., 12.4 ppg.), Thorir Thorbjarnarson (G, 6-6, Jr., 8.9 ppg.)
The analytics
NET — Iowa 30, Nebraska 170
KenPom — Iowa 18 (Adjusted offense, 3; adjusted defense, 114), Nebraska 136 (Adjusted offense, 140; adjusted defense, 158)
Sagarin — Iowa 26, Nebraska 140
What to watch
It wasn't good the last time these two played. Nebraska's defense sagged on Garza and dared Iowa to shoot from the outside. With Fredrick in a walking boot because of a stress reaction in his foot, the Hawkeyes went 4-of-33 in 3-pointers — Wieskamp, Iowa's leader in 3-pointers this season, went 1-of-10.
Considering the way Garza has been playing — he brings in a streak of eight consecutive games of 20 or more points against Big Ten teams — the Huskers will probably do the same thing.
"I would say (it's a) decent chance," Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. "I'm to the point now where we've seen it all. We'll probably see more than one thing from them, just like we see more than one thing from everybody else now.
"They're fronting, they're playing behind, doubling here, doubling late, doubling early, they're crowding him. They're guarding CJ a certain way, Joe (Wieskamp) a certain way, Joe Toussaint a certain way. The big lineup a certain way, the small lineup a certain way. It's just all part of it, especially as you're going through the ... not that we play everybody twice, but you're kind of going through the conference for the second time now. Everybody has seen a lot of each other."
