When Iowa star Luka Garza announced this summer that he would return to his veteran season, he made his ambitions clear. “I am very excited to be back with my teammates and I hope to win a national championship, winning a Big Ten championship,” said Garza. “We have big goals in mind and, as soon as we get back on the court, we will start working and, hopefully, we will be able to make some history this year.”
But after a 95-80 loss to Oregon on Monday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, it looks like Garza’s historic university career is over. The school’s all-time top scorer did everything in his power to push his team toward the goals he set when he decided to return, but in the end, the Hawkeyes were unable to overcome their own lackluster defense.
Number 7 in the Ducks ranking shot up 55.9% and accumulated 56 points in the first half alone. Even a 36-point vintage effort by Garza failed to rescue Iowa when the Hawkeyes exploded on the first weekend of Big Dance once again.
Although Iowa has enjoyed its best winning percentage in the Big Ten since 1987, with Garza repeating himself as the Big Ten Player and as an All-American AP of the first team, this should have been the one that pushed the program into its first Sweet 16 since 1999 and potentially even more. But defense has always been a concern for this team, after ranking only 97th in efficiency at KenPom last season.
Perhaps the Hawkeyes have improved a little in this regard this season – they were in 60th place on the same metric entering the game on Monday – but Oregon exposed Iowa’s limitations and ended the career of a great college basketball player of all time .
Nothing about the early departure of the Hawkeyes will diminish Garza’s high school achievements, but Monday’s loss may leave the program in need of a recalibration as it progresses without Garza.
Iowa’s loss also leaves the Big Ten reeling. Of the nine league teams that participated in the NCAA tournament, only number 1 in Michigan and number 10 in Maryland remain, and one will need to win on Monday if the conference has a representative on Sweet 16. For a league that seemed to settle as the best in the country over the course of the regular season, the postseason fights are surprising.
On the other hand, Oregon’s progression to Sweet 16 is the latest addition to the Pac-12. The Ducks and rival Oregon State advanced each, and the other three teams in the league’s NCAA Tournament have a chance to continue progressing through the rest of Monday’s second round action.