TAMPA – Alvaro Folgueiras delivered the biggest shot of Iowa’s season, knocking down a game-winning 3-pointer Sunday night to send the Hawkeyes to their first Sweet Sixteen since 1999 and knocking out defending national champion Florida.
With eight seconds left and ninth-seeded Iowa trailing 72-70, Hawkeyes point guard Bennett Stirtz escaped top-seeded Florida’s press and hit Folguerias with a perfect pass in the corner. A wide-open Folguerias – a 32.7% 3-point shooter this season – swished it with 4.2 seconds left for the 73-72 victory.
“The play was drawn up for me to get downhill, and then this dude [Folgueiras] came up to me and he’s like, ‘I’m going to be ready and I’m going to make it,’” Stirtz said in a postgame news conference.
Folgueiras, a 6-foot-10 junior transfer from Robert Morris, finished with 14 points, punctuated by the game-winner in the South Region matchup. He also was involved in a jump ball altercation with Florida’s Alex Condon in the first half; both players were assigned a technical foul
“That’s the MO for us right now,” Iowa coach Ben McCollum said afterward. “We have to get 50-50 balls. We do have to be physical. We just have to fight.”
Physicality and intense defensive pressure have become a staple of McCollum’s teams. This was his second NCAA Tournament appearance at the Division I level; he took Drake to the tourney last season, when the 11th-seeded Bulldogs upset Missouri in the first round before losing to Texas Tech. McCollum has brought the success he built at Division II Northwest Missouri State – including a national title in 2017 – to this Iowa group.
Iowa’s defensive pressure disrupted Florida’s rhythm from the start. Florida bludgeoned SEC foes with a big frontcourt that helped the Gators lead the nation in rebounds per game. But the Gators found it tough to get paint touches in the first half, much less paint points, and leading scorer Thomas Haugh, a 6-foot-9 junior forward, scored just four first-half points, all from the line.
“In the first half, I was just out of it,” Haugh said in a postgame news conference. “I just feel bad. I didn’t make any plays, didn’t do anything to help the team out to win the first half.”
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Iowa more than held its own on the boards, as each team finished with 27 rebounds. The Hawkeyes also limited Florida’s transition opportunities, holding the Gators to just seven fast-break points.
“We felt pretty good if we stopped them in transition and they had to go up against our halfcourt defense,” Iowa redshirt freshman forward Cooper Koch told Hoops HQ.
The 6-foot-7 Koch added 12 points – all from 3-point range – including two key baskets in the final six minutes as Iowa regained its stride. The Hawkeyes led 33-31 at halftime, then built the lead to 51-39 less than six minutes into the second half. But Florida responded by getting aggressive on offense and led 65-61 with 5:38 left. But Koch’s last 3-pointer gave Iowa a 66-65 lead, and it was back and forth from there.
The Hawkeyes finished with a 32-30 advantage in paint points, and rendered 6-foot-10 Florida center Rueben Chinyelu – the SEC defensive player of the year and the league’s leading rebounder – totally ineffective. Chinyelu finished with no points, one rebound and four fouls.
For Koch, this moment is especially sweet. His father, J.R., was a member of the Hawkeyes’ most recent Sweet Sixteen team, in 1999.
“It feels surreal,” Koch told Hoops HQ. “This is something you dream about as a kid. Just to live out this dream and go to the Sweet Sixteen – it hasn’t hit yet, but it probably will tomorrow.”
Iowa faces a familiar opponent Thursday in Houston, squaring off against Big Ten foe Nebraska with an Elite Eight appearance on the line. The teams split their regular-season series, with each winning at home.
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