This Holds Iowa Back From Higher NCAA March Madness Seed, per ESPN Bracketologist

The Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball team's March Madness seeding will suffer because of this.

Iowa Hawkeyes head coach Jan Jensen reacts as a technical foul is called against Iowa Hawkeyes guard Sydney Affolter (3) while playing the Indiana Hoosiers Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa. | Julia Hansen/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball team finished the 2025 NCAA regular season with a 20-9 record. While this is a respectable record considering how elite the Big Ten Conference is, it's a far cry from the success Iowa amassed over the past few seasons when Caitlin Clark was on their roster.

However, the Hawkeyes' strength of schedule combined with them advancing to the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal cements them in the NCAA Tournament, and most likely will make them the higher seed in the tournament's first round.

This is conveyed by them being the No. 6 seed in ESPN's projected NCAA March Madness bracket, lumping them in with the same region as teams like South Carolina, TCU, and Duke. During a March 12 conference call, ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme revealed that Iowa could have secured a higher seed if not for one tough stretch of their regular season.

"I guess it's maybe conceivable, if the committee puts a lot more weight on how you're playing now, they could even slide up the five [seed] line," Creme said of the Hawkeyes, per an article from Dargan Southard of Hawk Central. "I don't quite see it that way. Certainly, the way they're playing now factors in. But there were some struggles in the early-mid part of the Big Ten schedule that's holding them back a little bit from being even higher."

ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme talks Iowa women's basketball before NCAA Tournament https://t.co/UX4oMsFNDq

— Hawk Central (@hawkcentral) March 12, 2025

Creme is referring to the Hawkeyes' five-game losing streak during Big Ten games from January 5-19. While Jan Jensen's squad has rebounded from that brutal stretch in terms of their recent play, it's not going to do them any favors come Selection Sunday.