No. 25 Iowa gets a visit for 36 years when UCLA travels to Iowa City, Iowa, as Big Ten Conference play resumes Saturday.
The Hawkeyes (11-2, 1-1 Big Ten) are riding a three-game winning streak in which they have scored more than 90 points in each victory. The most recent of these was a 90-62 game against UMass Lowell on Monday when Bennett Stirtz continued his strong start with 22 points, while pushing his season average to 17.1 points.
Stirtz’s scoring is tied for 11th in the Big Ten, and he ranks sixth in the conference in assists per game with 5.2 after dishing out eight on Monday.
The rout in the non-conference final improved the Hawkeyes to 8-0 at home this season. The next challenge comes from UCLA, which hasn’t played in Iowa City since 1990.
“The (non-conference) schedule prepared us,” Iowa coach Ben McCollum said. “Our two road games (losses to top-10 ranked Michigan State and Iowa State) were fantastic games to play, got us prepared and now we just have to carry them over into the Big Ten game here on Saturday.”
UCLA (10-3, 2-0) is playing its first real road game since escaping its Big Ten opener at Washington on Dec. 3 with an 82-80 victory. However, two of the Bruins’ three losses came on neutral grounds, closer to the campuses of Cal and Gonzaga.
Since losing that last one, an 82-72 setback to Gonzaga in Seattle on Dec. 13, UCLA has won three straight, each by double-digit margins.
The Bruins entered their vacation after a 97-65 loss to UC Riverside, marking their third straight game with at least 90 points. This is the highest-scoring three-game stretch for UCLA in coach Mick Cronin’s tenure, beginning with the 2019-20 season.
Cronin has shuffled the lineup recently, using more three-guard looks with Skyy Clark, Donovan Dent and Trent Perry sharing the floor. Perimeter playmakers score 14.2, 12.6 and 9.7 points per game, respectively, to complement forward Tyler Bilodeau’s team-best 19.0 per game.
UCLA is looking to find the right combination of offensive production without sacrificing defense or rebounding as it moves toward the bulk of the Big Ten roster. The Bruins have a narrow rebounding margin of plus 1.2 per game this season, compared to Iowa’s 3.4.
“I don’t worry about (playing small) because they have nothing to do with our rebounding,” Cronin said of the guards. “The problem is if you play small, you have to be a tremendous offensive team. You play small because you’re going to spread the field.”
UCLA also looks to break down an Iowa defense that has held opponents to 60.1 points per game, the fourth-fewest points in Division I. The Hawkeyes have been particularly effective with perimeter defense, allowing just 5.6 3-pointers per game — the 12th-lowest output in the country.
The Bruins didn’t rely heavily on 3-pointers, making just over eight per game, but shot effectively as a team from distance. UCLA is shooting 39.8% from 3-point range, 14th nationally.
–Field level media
