College Basketball Game of the Week: Illinois at Iowa

College Basketball Game of the Week

Illinois at Iowa

This matchup features the Kenpom ranked 3rd offense right behind Alabama and Purdue going on the road to Iowa who has multiple transfers from Drake and their past March Madness success. Iowa also holds the 30th ranked offense and 18th defense and will be playing at home where they are undefeated and coming off of a double digit win against UCLA. Illinois is coming off a three game win streak where they’ve reached 90 points twice. Illinois also has multiple guys who can score in double digits and be their leading scorer on any given night. They are still only shooting just under 35% from deep and week by week maintaining a top 3 offense. If this team can get hot from deep to improve this stat specifically we could see Illinois make a jump even higher in offensive efficiency. Defensively, Illinois is still top 25 coming in with the 20th ranking.

Playing on the road against a team that is undefeated at home will be a tall task for Illinois who is in need of a big win. They’ve lost to UConn, Alabama, and Nebraska this season with their main signature win against Texas Tech. For Iowa, they are led by Bennet Stirtz who averaged 21 ppg in March last season for Drake. Both teams have 2 wins in a tough Big 10 conference and look to gain an early season edge in the standings.