Clemson is favored by -2.5 over Iowa at FanDuel, but Clemson only gives the Tigers a 43% chance to win. Evan Miya who also does great work is even more harsh giving the Clemson Tigers a scant 39.2% chance to win against the Iowa Hawkeyes. Clemson is no. 34 in the NET while Iowa is 27. KenPom and Evan Miya have them ranked similarly. So what gives?
Firstly, FanDuel is unique as other sites I’ve seen at least opened with Iowa as a slight 1.5-point favorite, but I think the folks over at FanDuel are onto a few things the analytics are missing.
Winning Matters
The Big Ten is really good this year. Michigan, Purdue, Michigan State, and Illinois are all legitimate National Championship contenders. Iowa deserves credit for playing the 47th best strength of schedule (Clemson was 65th), but Clemson won three more games finishing with 24 wins. Despite Iowa getting more Quad 1 opportunities, they didn’t actually win more Quad 1 games. The Hawkeyes were 5-9 in Quad 1. Clemson was 6-6. Iowa was 11-11 and Big Ten games. Clemson was 14-7 in all ACC games. Perhaps Iowa’s advanced metrics looked better in losses or their wins were more dominant, but Clemson was simply better at winning.
Matchup Advantage
When I look at what each team does well, Clemson may have caught a lucky break. I was hoping the Tigers would get a 7-seed and face a team like UCF or Missouri (although I would have been livid about playing a de facto road game against Missouri in St. Louis as the better seed as Miami will do). Still, Iowa is a decent draw from a matchup perspective.
With Clemson starting center Carter Welling out with a torn ACL, Clemson can’t stop an excellent center. We saw UNC’s Henri Veesaar limited in the Tigers first matchup with the Tar Heels, but when they faced them in the ACC tournament without Welling, Veesaar went off for 28 points. Clemson won anyway because they limited everyone else, namely the Tar Heel guards. Iowa only has two players averaging double-digit points per game and both are guards/wings.
Bennett Sturtz is averaging over 20 ppg and is the player to know for the Hawkeyes. I watched a bit of film from his virtuoso performance against Oregon earlier this year and he is going to be a handful to stop. He is shooting 37.6% from 3 on a whopping 218 attempts, but he isn’t a mere 3-point merchant. Unlike someone like Isaac McKneely (Louisville) who has similar 3-point numbers but under 50 2-point shots, Sturtz has 243 2-point shots and is shooting nearly 60% from inside the arc. He is projected as a first round draft pick by ESPN’s Jeremy Woo who says:
“He has put together another strong statistical season on an extremely slow-paced Iowa team built around his skill set. His impressive decision-making, court awareness and perimeter shooting will have to cover for his limited foot speed in the NBA, and his defense won’t be a calling card.”
All that being said, Clemson has given me two reasons for optimism in going up against this task. Firstly, they have a veteran corps of guards that are strong defensively. Butta Johnson, Dillon Hunter, and Jestin Porter are all seniors who provide solid on-ball defense. FSU’s Robert McCray and Alabama’s Labaron Philon are the two exceptions as both burned Clemson for 29 points each in close losses for Clemson. Each of them along with BYU’s AJ Dybantsa burned Clemson by attacking the basket relentlessly In the case of the FSU game, a quick whistle made McCray impossible for any team to guard. The others are elite talents even beyond Bennett Sturtz’s level with unstoppable athleticism. Bennett Sturtz draws 4.3 fouls per game on his opponents. The stars who burned Clemson average more because their freak NBA athletes. Dybantsa draws more than 7 fouls per game! Sturtz is actually my kind of heady, well-rounded offensive talent, but what actually kills Clemson is freak athleticism. That’s what the Tigers defense can’t really stop — as almost nobody can.
Maybe this is naive, but I believe in Clemson’s guards can to prevent him from going off for 28 or 29 points like those other stars did. Even if he does, Clemson proved against UNC and Henri Veesaar that a 28 point performance doesn’t guarantee a win against them as the Tigers can limit the rest of the team.
Momentum
I’m not a big believer in momentum, but I am a believer in progression and teams evolving over the year. In that regard, we’ve seen Clemson redshirt freshman Ace Buckner become a reliable scorer attacking the basket and shooting the 3. After being a downright awful 3-point shooting for the first half of the year and basically begging Coach Brownell to make him stop shooting from deep, Buckner has made 43.4% of his 46 shots from behind the arc over the last 14 games. (I was obviously wrong.) This is a new(ish) weapon for the Tigers.
Meanwhile, Bennett Sturtz has been struggling. Well, struggling would be an exaggeration, but he has been less dominant down the stretch as Iowa has lost 7 of their last 9. In those games, Bennett Sturtz has still averaged his 20 points per game, but his 3-point shooting dropped to 32.5% indicating a cooling off of sorts for him as the Hawkeyes have stumbled late in the season.
Final Thoughts
Iowa could absolutely beat Clemson. I’m by no means arguing this is a slam dunk win for the Tigers. This is a toss-up as much as any 8-9 seed matchup is bound to be, but this is one where recent success and actual win/loss results trump the the advanced analytics for me.
The Tigers are playing better basketball entering the tournament as winners of four of six (including Louisville and UNC). Iowa is not well-suited to take advantage of the Carter Welling injury and the Tigers deep corp of strong defensive guards should make life at least somewhat difficult for the excellent Bennett Sturz.
Jon Rothstein, who has an excellent college basketball podcast, picked the Tigers to win and I will too.
Heading down to Tampa to watch the game? Perhaps not, but maybe you’d just like to show our writers some love by supporting our friends at Section 103. They have you covered with polos, T-shirts, hats, and more. Use our code STS10 and get 10% off your first order.
For a broader look at all the ACC team’s matchups, check out the video below: