It’s finally here. The kids are on spring break, the Chicago River is going green and we’re all ready to be mad again as Selection Sunday is upon us and after back-to-back seasons without an NCAA Tournament appearance, your Iowa Hawkeyes are looking to hear their names called once again.
This. Is. March.
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Only five games today stand between you and the Selection Show this evening. The action kicks off this morning with a familiar face in a new place as former Hawkeye head coach Fran McCaffery leads the Penn Quakers against Yale in search of the Ivy League Tournament Championship at 11 am CT on ESPN2. An hour later, the SEC title game features a pair of tournament teams in #22 Vanderbilt and #17 Arkansas. That one tips off at noon Central on ESPN. At the same time, CBS has the A-10 Championship Game, featuring Dayton and VCU. The Rams are currently projected as in over on BracketMatrix.com as an 11-seed while Dayton is looking to steal a bid with a win.
It’s a similar story for South Florida and Wichita State in the American Conference title game at 2:15pm CT. The Bulls are projected in as an 11-seed while the Shockers need a win to get in. That one will be on ESPN.
The action wraps up as usual with the Big Ten Championship Game, featuring #18 Purdue and #3 Michigan. The Wolverines have an outside shot at the top overall seed in the Tournament, but it would likely take an impressive showing given #2 Arizona finished off with a win in the Big 12 Championship on Saturday and #1 Duke did the same in the night-cap in the ACC.
Michigan is favored by 6.5 points according to FanDuel Sportsbook. They’ve been the favorite all along and were heavily favored in this week’s national Reacts poll. Purdue, meanwhile, was picked by just 6% of SB Nation readers to win the Big Ten Tournament. They’ve found something this week that had been missing since their win in Iowa City back in mid-February. The Boilers lost three of their final four and four of their final six regular season games, including a home matchup against Michigan (91-80) back on February 17th.
Michigan and Purdue are set to tip off at 2:30 pm CT on CBS and will lead right into the Selection Sunday show. That’s set to air at 5pm CT on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
With both the Boilers and Wolverines safely in the field, there are really only three potential bids up for grabs today, meaning 28 of the 68 seats have been taken (there are 31 automatic qualifiers and 37 at-large bids). The Hawkeyes are hoping to be one of those 37 at-large bids today.
While they have faltered down the stretch and certainly hurt themselves, the bubble is considered weak this year and many teams struggled worse than the Hawkeyes did over the final few weeks, likely bursting their bubbles before today. Bracket Matrix still has Iowa listed as a 9-seed as of this morning. That’s down from a 7-seed at one point and as high as a six on some sites.
Candidly, slipping to the 10 line might be preferable for the Hawkeyes and their fans. Iowa is a tough matchup for most teams in that middle of the pack and will be in a solid position to advance past the first round regardless of whether they are a 7, 8, 9 or 10 seed. But the second round matchup could be a meaningful dropoff getting off that 8-9 line where they would advance to potentially face a 1-seed. With the head of the pack being so good this year (Duke, Michigan, Arizona and Florida would all be miserable matchups for the Hawkeyes), slipping to the 10 spot and potentially facing a 2-seed would give Iowa a much better shot at finally getting that Sweet Sixteen monkey off their back.
Here’s a quick look at the full schedule of events for the 2026 NCAA Tournament, with the First Four tipping off on Tuesday, March 17th in Dayton, Ohio.
We’ll be back this evening with the full bracket, including details on Iowa’s First Round matchup should they be selected today.