HOUSTON – Four teams, three games, two advance on Thursday, one advances to the Final Four on Saturday.
The first two round of the 2026 NCAA Tournament have been all the top teams seeing a second weekend as expected. That is with the exception of two schools, one being No. 9 seed Iowa. The Hawkeyes stunned the world by dethroning the defending national champions and No. 1 seed Florida in the round of 32 with a 73-72 finish in Tampa, Florida.
As expected, the internet bursted into flames over the Iowa victory. It was impossible to ignore. But head coach Ben McCollum told his players to avoid reading or hearing about it.
“I don’t want you to read social media about it. I don’t want you to drink the poison,” he said. “We let them talk about it for five minutes in film… And then right when that five minutes was done, it’s done, and we’re on to Nebraska.”
Because of the win, the Hawkeyes were gifted another matchup with No. 4 seed and rival Nebraska in the Sweet 16. This will be the biggest game in the history of the rivalry as the winner moves on to the Elite Eight. And if it’s anything like the two matchups during the regular season, Thursday’s game will go down to the very last second.
“I think they do a really good job of pressuring us,” said Nebraska freshman forward Braden Frager. “That’s what they do. They slow the pace down. We like to run up-and-down and they do the opposite.”
If Iowa wins, it’ll be the program’s first Elite Eight appearance since 1987 in Tom Davis’ first season as Hawkeye head coach. Nebraska never won an NCAA Tournament game until this year. The Cornhuskers took down No. 13 seed Troy in the first round and No. 5 seed Vanderbilt in a thriller second round matchup.
Tipoff is set for 6:30 p.m. CT Thursday, March 26 at Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. The game can be streamed on TBS and truTV.
Eyeballing Illinois-Houston
Whoever wins the Iowa-Nebraska game will take on the winner of Illinois-Houston. This is an intriguing matchup for all the right reasons.
The Fighting Illini are the elite on both sides of the ball. On offense, it ranks 17th in the nation with an 84.7 scoring average aided by the ninth-highest average threes made with 11 per game. Its 41 rebounding average ranks 10th.
And on defense, Illinois is just outside the top 50 with 69.4 points allowed per game. Outside of that, the only stat it dominates in is the foul category. The nation’s second-lowest total of 13.3 fouls per game leads to NCAA-bests in 9.1 free throw makes and 12.5 free throw attempts per game. That alone is a recipe for success defensively.
Houston, on the other hand, is a defensive juggernaut. It leads the nation with 20.7 field goals made per game, rank second with 62.3 opponent points per game, and rank fifth with 52.3 opponent field goals attempted. A big part of that is the Cougars’ slow pace of play – KenPom has it 350th out of 365 total teams in adjusted tempo – similar to Iowa’s style of play.
This game will feature very little turnovers as the Cougars leads the nation with 8.4 per game, followed by the Fighting Illini’s fifth-leading 8.8 per game.
The Illinois-Houston matchup will follow the conclusion of Iowa-Nebraska. Whoever makes it out of the South Region final game on Saturday will play the winner of the East Region next weekend. No. 1 seed Duke and No. 5 seed St. Johns will play the winner of No. 2 seed UConn and No. 3 seed Michigan State.