HOUSTON — Pick an adjective to describe Big Ten basketball.
Tough. Physical. Relentless.
On Saturday, it will be an All-Big Ten showdown in the South Regional final at the Toyota Center.
Third-seeded Illinois (27-8). Ninth-seeded Iowa (24-12). A rivalry that started in 1908 will add another chapter with a Final Four berth on the line.
After guiding the Fighting Illini to the Elite Eight for the second time in three seasons, Brad Underwood had his own way to describe the Big Ten: the best in the nation.
“Top to bottom it’s an incredible place to coach basketball,” Underwood said when asked by Hoops HQ about the league, home to three of the region’s four teams playing in Houston. “It’s a fun place to coach basketball. You get challenged every night, and it just so happens we got a group of players this year top to bottom who are outstanding.”
Illinois played outstanding defense and dominated the glass in Thursday’s 65-55 upset of No. 2 seed Houston in the Sweet Sixteen. The Illini held Houston to 34-percent shooting and its lowest point total of the season while finishing with a 43-34 rebounding advantage.
Star freshman Keaton Wagler finished with a game-high 12 rebounds — nine on the defensive end — and 13 points. It was a career-best rebounding performance for the consensus second-team All-American, but the projected lottery pick from Kansas shot only 4 of 14 from the floor after Illinois entered the night averaging nearly 85 points per game.
The 6-foot-6, 185-pound guard also dished out three assists and had two blocked shots while playing solid defense and taking what was given to him against a Cougar club that was playing only two miles from its campus. Wagler, who scored a career-high 46 points in a Jan. 24 win at Purdue, went into the night averaging 17.8 points and 4.9 rebounds.
“Our bigs did a great job blocking out their bigs,” Wagler said. “And I just came in there and cleaned up the boards that way.”
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David Mirkovic, a 6-foot-9 native of Montenegro, added 14 points and 10 rebounds to give Illinois a pair of freshman teammates with double-doubles. It marked the first time that had ever happened in the same NCAA Tournament game since freshmen became fully eligible in 1972-73.
Making its sixth straight NCAA Tournament appearance with Underwood at the helm, Illinois will face a Big Ten opponent in the Big Dance for only the second time. The other time it happened was when Michigan beat the Illini in the 1989 Final Four. Illinois seeks its first Final Four since being the 2005 national runner-up to North Carolina.
With a new coach in Ben McCollum, Iowa beat fourth-seeded Nebraska 77-71 on Thursday to reach the Elite Eight for the first time since 1987. Senior guard Bennett Stirtz had 20 points as the Hawkeyes shot 51.9 percent from the floor, made 13 threes and had a 20-7 advantage in points off turnovers.
The Hawkeyes have beaten all higher seeds, including No. 8 Clemson and top seed and reigning national champion Florida, in their first NCAA Tournament trip in three years. Their last Final Four appearance was in 1980.
Over the last seven days, Iowa has won three NCAA Tournament games. That matches its total from the previous 20 years. McCollum, an Iowa native, coached Drake to last season’s Round of 32 after winning four Division II national championships at Northwest Missouri State.
“The good part is it helped a lot of us in the tournament,” McCollum said of playing in the Big Ten. “I think sometimes it can hurt you too, just because you get beat up a little bit, maybe lose your confidence. It helped us from a process perspective and we continued to grow and get better and be better and better as long as we focused on that.”
Stirtz played two seasons for McCollum at Northwest Missouri State before they led Drake to the postseason a year ago. The first-team All-Big Ten selection leads the Hawkeyes in scoring and assists. He is the 11th player in college basketball history with at least 2,000 points, 550 assists, 450 rebounds and 225 steals.
Illinois won the last meeting against Iowa 75-69 on Jan. 11 in the only game played between the teams this season. Wagler had 19 points that game, while Stirtz had 12 points on 5-of-17 shooting. The Illini lead the all-time series, 95-77.
“I think Iowa is a team that’s not going to go away,” Wagler said. “When we played them, we got up early on them, and then we let them back in the game. We can’t get lackadaisical on that side of the ball on defense.”
According to Stirtz, Illinois has improved since the last meeting in the rivalry.
“Keaton is playing a lot better as a freshman and all their players have made great strides this season,” Stirtz said.
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