March Madness may not come until the end of the college basketball season, but earning a spot in the NCAA Tournament is at the forefront of any program’s thoughts at any given time.

That includes when a team is putting a non-conference schedule together.

In addition to playing 20 conference games this year, the Iowa men’s basketball program does not have much of an opportunity to ease into the regular season. The Hawkeyes face off against a number of talented opponents before league play begins this season, which has become a trend around college basketball.

“It’s the new normal,” Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said. “You’re going to play teams like that [early in the season]. We have two challenge games. We play Iowa State. We’re going to be in an MTE. We’re going to play two league games in December.”

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The first real challenge of the 2019-20 campaign for the Hawkeyes is tonight’s contest against DePaul. The Blue Demons come into Carver-Hawkeye Arena with a 3-0 record and the talent necessary to pull off a road upset.

“I think they’re really good,” McCaffery said. “They’re undefeated. They had a good year last year. [DePaul head coach David Leitao] has been there a while now to establish what he wants to do. It’s a team we have tremendous respect for coming in here, and you’re playing in the Big East Challenge, so you got to be ready.”

The Iowa-DePaul matchup is a part of this season’s Gavitt Games, which sees Big Ten and Big East programs face off against each other. DePaul is coming off of a 19-17 season last year, ending its campaign with a loss in the CBI Championship Game.

This season, DePaul is led by Kansas transfer Charlie Moore.

Moore leads the Blue Demons in scoring with 19.3 points per game this season. He’s one of four players on the roster averaging double digits through three games.

Iowa cruised to an easy victory against Southern Illinois-Edwardsville in the season-opener, but the schedule picks up over the next several weeks, starting with DePaul.

“I think it’s another test for us and an opportunity for us to improve,” center Luka Garza said. “Obviously, having a 20-game Big Ten schedule, we know what we’re going to be facing down the line, so to have a couple of tough tests early and not just have some cupcake games, we can test ourselves.

“I think our schedule this year is very tough. Every team we have brings something new for us to deal with and to improve on.”

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Cupcake games, as Garza put it, used to be the norm to open the season. Programs did not want to unnecessarily blemish their records with an early-season loss.

Now, teams have no choice but to schedule quality opponents early in the season, or else they’ll face the consequences when the postseason comes around.

“It’s not like the old days where you don’t play anybody until January — it doesn’t work that way anymore,” McCaffery said. “You can’t schedule that way and get respect on Selection Sunday.”