A year ago at this time, it was largely inconceivable that the Iowa Hawkeyes would head into the NCAA Tournament as Big Ten Tournament champions. With just two games remaining in the regular season, the Hawkeyes were sitting at 21-8 overall and 11-7 in Big Ten conference play. It had been a very good season to-date, but despite a hot finish to the season, Iowa was not set to get a double-bye. Since 1998, only three teams had won the tournament coming in as lower than a 4-seed.
Making matters more daunting: this is Iowa and this was Fran McCaffery.