Since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, the Iowa Hawkeyes were selected 18 times and Iowa State Cyclones, 19. The Hawks are 17-18 while ISU is 18-19. 14 times, they have overlapped in their entry to March Madness. In other words, it is more likely for Iowa’s two biggest state schools to reach the tournament than it is for both of them to miss it (13).
The adjacent ebbs and flows provide one last bragging right - who went further? - to carry the two fanbases into the next year of animosity, especially since the six year run between 2012 & 2017 landed red five times on the roulette wheel of March success.