INDIANAPOLIS — Only one win stands in the way of the Iowa men’s basketball team getting back to a place it hasn’t been in more than two decades.

The winner of Monday’s Iowa-Oregon matchup in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament’s Round of 32 will determine who moves on to the Sweet 16, and who goes home. Lately, in the second round of the tournament, the Hawkeyes have ended up in the latter category.

This year’s No. 2-seeded Hawkeyes are ready to end that trend.

“This is what we signed up for,” Iowa’s senior point guard Jordan Bohannon said. “We wanted to have a chance to make a deep run in this tournament. [Monday] is another opportunity for us to do that.”

Iowa has not been to the Sweet 16 since 1999. The program is 0-3 in the Round of 32 in Fran McCaffery’s 11-year tenure as coach and the last time the Hawkeyes made it this far, they lost to No. 2 seed Tennessee in overtime as a No. 10 seed.

Unlike that loss, and every other second round tournament game under McCaffery, the Hawkeyes are the favorites to advance this time.

In its 2019 tournament loss to Tennessee, Iowa trailed by as many as 25 points before eventually sending the game to overtime. The team’s slow start in that game has stuck with senior center Luka Garza.

“It was a memorable moment in terms of the pain afterward, almost getting [to the Sweet 16],” Garza said. “That stuck in my head since that moment.

“We didn’t come out as well as we wanted to in that game. We got off to a slow start, went down 25. For us, the biggest thing is to be ready for the moment as soon as the tip comes. Not to be a little slow to start. We can’t afford to do that, especially against a great team like Oregon. We don’t want to be battling back.”

Iowa (22-8 overall) used an 11-2 run against Grand Canyon on Saturday to jump to an early lead, which it kept throughout its tournament-opening win.

Replicating that success, as Garza mentioned, will be key in controlling the tempo against seventh-seeded Oregon (20-6), a team that won the Pac-12 regular-season title. The Ducks automatically advanced to the second round after their first-round opponent — VCU — could not compete because of positive COVID-19 tests within its program. So Oregon will be well-rested for Monday’s game, while Iowa will play its second game in three days.

“Makes no difference,” McCaffery said.

Getting to the second weekend — and beyond — is why Garza returned to the Hawkeyes for his senior season. It’s why Bohannon went through two hip surgeries and came back for a fifth season. It’s why Joe Wieskamp stayed in school.

To not advance, in likely the last season as Hawkeyes for all three of those players, would be a sour end to a standout season for the program.

Saturday’s game between Iowa and Oregon is scheduled to tip off at 11:10 a.m. CST at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse and will air on CBS. In many ways, it may be Iowa’s biggest game of the McCaffery era.

And if the Hawkeyes win, the games will only get bigger after that.

“Heading into this tournament, we put ourselves in a great position to make a run,” Bohannon said. “Oregon’s another opponent in our way that’s an obstacle we have to get through.”