Following a dominating 110-77 victory over USC Upstate on Nov. 26, the Iowa men’s basketball team gets set to return from their holiday break on Dec. 3 for the Big Ten season opener against the Northwestern Wildcats at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The Hawkeyes hope to reverse an ugly trend of losing Big Ten games in the month of December. Since the league began playing 20 conference games, two Big Ten games are played in the middle of the non-conference slate.
Iowa has gone winless in these games over the past three seasons despite making the NCAA Tournament in two of those years. Fourth-year forward Payton Sandfort wants to change that trend this season.
“It’s not something we need, but it would definitely feel better going into the January portion of it if we got off to a better start, ” Sandfort told Mike Hlas of The Gazette at a press conference on Monday.
Tuesday’s contest will mark the 187th all-time meeting between the two programs. The Hawkeyes lead the overall series 125-61 and have won 10 out of the last 11 games against the Wildcats, including an 87-70 decision last season in Evanston, Illinois.
Tipoff is set for 6 p.m. inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The contest will be live-streamed on Peacock, a subscription service owned by NBC. Click this link or download the Peacock app on your SmartTV to watch.
Scouting Northwestern
Northwestern enters the contest with a 6-2 record. Though the Wildcats haven’t beaten any teams projected to qualify for the NCAA Tournament, their two losses to Dayton and Butler were by a combined seven points.
Chris Collins enters his 12th season as the head coach, and he has done an incredible job bringing credibility to one of the worst Power-4 college basketball programs of all-time. All three of Northwestern’s NCAA Tournament appearances in its history have come under Collins, including consecutive berths in 2023 and 2024.
The Wildcats lost the services of standout Boo Buie to graduation in the offseason, but forward Nick Martinelli and guard Brooks Barnhizer have stepped in to fill Buie’s shoes.
Martinelli leads all Northwestern scorers with 20.2 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. His highest output of the season came against Dayton on Nov. 9, where he chipped in 32 points and 14 rebounds. Northwestern narrowly lost, but Martinelli’s performance garnered plenty of attention from the rest of the league. Aside from that game, Martinelli has scored 20 or more points four times, and is a player that Iowa likely has highlighted in the film room.
Barnhizer has seen action in only four games this year after missing time with a foot injury, but the senior has collected a double-double in each of those contests. Barnhizer has tallied 20 points, eight rebounds, and four assists per game this season.
As a team, the Wildcats have posted 72.6 points per game, a number that ranks 17th in the Big Ten. Defensively, Northwestern has been stout, holding opponents to 62.5 points per contest.
Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery was able to watch the Wildcats in-person last week during their matchup against Butler, where McCaffery’s son, Patrick, is playing his final season of college basketball after departing from Iowa in the offseason.
“I was just really locked in on Patrick and what they were doing,” McCaffery told Tyler Tachman of The Des Moines Register. “I’ve watched a number of tapes on Northwestern, so I knew what they’re going to do. You just got to go stop it. They know what we’re going to do.”
Injury updates
The Hawkeyes have dealt with the injury bug all season long, and they may be without a key bench contributor tomorrow night.
First-year forward Cooper Koch is out indefinitely with an undisclosed injury, while second-year forward Seydou Traore is a “game time decision” per McCaffery. Traore suffered a sprained ankle during Iowa’s lopsided victory over USC Upstate last week.
Traore’s injury looked serious on television, but his prognosis is a good sign for the Hawkeyes. The Manhattan transfer has been one of Iowa’s best defenders this season, posting 6.8 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks per game.
Sandfort has also been battling a wrist injury over the past few weeks, but the senior assured the media on Monday that he is “fine.” In fact, Sandfrot says that Iowa’s injury issues have increased team chemistry.
“It’s brought our team closer together,” Sandfort told Eliot Clough of Hawkeye Beacon. “A lot of other leaders have emerged from this. We’re more together because of it. Once everybody is back out there, we’ll have a lot of weapons that have had playing time this year and can contribute to winning games in the Big Ten.”