TL;DR
Iowa stunned top-seeded Florida 73-72 on a last-second three — and now faces Nebraska in the first all-Big Ten Sweet 16 matchup ever.
MSM Perspective
CBS Sports is leading with the bracket upset angle, framing the Iowa-Nebraska Sweet 16 as a historic conference collision.
X Perspective
X erupted over Alvaro Folgueiras's buzzer-beating three — Iowa basketball accounts are treating this as a generational moment for the program.
Alvaro Folgueiras buried a three-pointer with 4.5 seconds remaining, and Iowa beat top-seeded Florida 73-72. The Hawkeyes are in the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1999 — a drought that spanned 27 years and outlasted three head coaches. [1]
The win was improbable by the numbers. Iowa shot over 70 percent on two-point attempts against Florida, a rate no team had achieved against Todd Golden's Gators in 144 games at Gainesville. The defending national champions were out-executed in the paint and out-nerved at the finish. [2]
Tonight the Hawkeyes face Nebraska, producing the first-ever Big Ten versus Big Ten Sweet Sixteen matchup. The conference split the regular season series 1-1, and now the rivalry resumes with an Elite Eight appearance on the line. Both fan bases have descended on Kansas City.
Ben McCollum, Iowa's first-year head coach, arrived from Northwest Missouri State — a Division II program — and has already delivered the deepest tournament run in a generation. The program's trajectory has shifted in four months.
The bracket does not care about history. But Iowa's players clearly do.
-- Amara Okonkwo, Lagos
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