{"id":673754,"date":"2026-03-23T03:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T03:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/673754\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T03:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T03:03:17","slug":"no-9-iowa-stuns-no-1-florida-73-72-as-reigning-champs-fall-nbc-sports-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/673754\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 9 Iowa stuns No. 1 Florida 73-72 as reigning champs fall \u2013 NBC Sports Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first men’s No. 1 seed has been eliminated. And they were the reigning champions.<\/p>\n

No. 9 Iowa on Sunday took down the top-seeded Florida Gators 73-72 in their second-round matchup, making a statement on the March Madness<\/a> stage.<\/p>\n

Iowa led for the majority of the game, including a 12-point gap at one point in the middle of the first period. The Hawkeyes showed their intent with their energy early, too, before taking a 33-31 advantage at halftime.<\/p>\n

They didn’t let up to start the second half, either, and it wasn’t until Florida put together a small 6-0 run that finally made things interesting and increased its belief of a comeback. <\/p>\n

But just when Florida reclaimed the lead and thought it could run away it from there, the Hawkeyes just keep clawing back.<\/p>\n

It culminated in a brilliantly executed full-court play with under 10 seconds that resulted in a Alvaro Folgueiras 3-pointer to seal the win.<\/p>\n

Florida had just under five seconds to respond with a full-court play of its own. The intent was to use speed and create an open layup at the rim, but Iowa clogged the paint well to prevent a shot from even going up.<\/p>\n

Four Hawkeyes scored double-digit points, led by Tavion Banks’ 20 on 7 of 10 shooting overall, though he made just 5 of 10 free throws to leave key points off the board. <\/p>\n

Folgueiras, a junior forward from Spain and in his first year with Iowa, put up 14 points in 18 minutes off the bench to go with five rebounds, one assist and a steal with a 6-for-6 foul-line rate.<\/p>\n

Florida had three double-digit scorers, though the bench impact was minimal. Alex Condon scored 21 points to go with seven assists, while Thomas Haugh, a potential first-round NBA<\/a> draft pick, had 19 points but thanks to 11 of 12 free throws (3 of 11 from the field). Xaivian Lee added an efficient 17 points on 7 of 11 shooting overall.<\/p>\n

The margins for both teams stayed close regarding shooting percentages, including other notable stats, so it became anyone’s game the more the clock approached all zeroes. <\/p>\n

Iowa will now meet No. 4 Nebraska in the Sweet 16 after also knocking No. 8 Clemson in the opener, while the Gators will have to reflect on a disappointing repeat bid. It’s the Hawkeyes’ first Sweet 16 berth since 1999, and head coach Ben McCollum deserves plenty of praise for his efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first men’s No. 1 seed has been eliminated. And they were the reigning champions. No. 9 Iowa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,7456,231,772,1400,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-673754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-march-madness","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaa-tournament","14":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116276272399692688","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}