HOUSTON — When Iowa guard Bennett Stirtz played his first game against Illinois on Jan. 11, he scored 12 points on 5-for-17 shooting, including 2-for-8 from 3-point range.
Stirtz said most of that was the Illini — and more specifically senior guard Kylan Boswell — “just destroying me, just pressuring me.”
At the time of Illinois’ 75-69 win in Iowa City, Stirtz was just five games into his Big Ten career. The 6-foot-4, 190-pound guard played his first two seasons at Division II Northwest Missouri State and last season at Drake before following coach Ben McCollum to Iowa.
“That was kind of the first Big Ten matchup where someone was really, really challenging me and really pressuring me,” Stirtz said. “I definitely got more experience with that this season. But still, he’s one of the best defenders that has guarded me all season long, and he’s going to bring it, and their whole team is going to bring it.”
Stirtz is more seasoned now as No. 9 seed Iowa gets ready to for the rematch against No. 3 seed Illinois in the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight on Saturday at the Toyota Center (5:09 p.m., TBS).
Stirtz scored fewer than those 12 points just once after the Illinois game, in a loss at Nebraska on March 8. The All-Big Ten selection scored 20 in the rematch with the Cornhuskers in the Sweet 16 on Thursday, a 77-71 Hawkeyes win.
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Illinois, which put together a huge defensive performance to beat Houston in its Sweet 16 game, knows shutting down Stirtz is the first order of business.
Illinois guard Keaton Wagler grew up near Stirtz’s hometown of Liberty, Mo., and was a few years behind him. He was a really good player then, Wagler said, and that hasn’t changed.
“Always made the right play on his team,” Wagler said. “High-IQ player, plays at his own pace, doesn’t get sped up, can shoot the ball, get downhill and finish that way.
“He’s a clutch player. He makes big-time shots all the time. We have to guard him physically the whole game, the whole 40 minutes. We can’t let him get any easy shots off. We have to be physical, make all of his catches hard and all of his shots hard.”
No letdown
Iowa has shocked many with its rise from a ninth-place Big Ten team to an Elite Eight participant that knocked off top-seeded Florida and fourth-seeded Nebraska in the South Region.
The Illini, coming off that gritty win against Houston, said they won’t underestimate the Hawkeyes, even if they beat them once.
“Iowa back then and now, it’s a whole different team,” center Zvonimir Ivišić said. “They are playing much better, much more confident with much more physicality. They’re a pretty good team. They showed it. They came to the Elite Eight too. They’re not here for no reason.”
In the last game, Illinois pulled to a 17-point second-half lead before letting Iowa back in the game. Multiple Illini players echoed the need to push ahead if they build a lead. Houston attempted a comeback Thursday, but the Illini pulled off the win.
“Iowa’s a team that’s not going to go away,” Wagler said. “We can’t get lackadaisical on that side of the ball on defense. Just stick to our process throughout the whole game.”
Illinois coach Brad Underwood said he has seen Iowa do a lot of things better than the Hawkeyes were doing at the end of the regular season, when they lost six of their final eight games.
“I think their ability to be diverse,” Underwood said. “They played a shooting lineup a lot yesterday (Thursday) with Cooper (Koch) and (Tate) Sage. I think that both those young men are better. They’re not playing like freshmen. They’re playing like chiseled veterans.
“They can play big. I think they’re defensively very dialed in, very focused. … They’re rebounding better, especially on the offensive side.”
Cinderella or not?
Big Ten teams might not usually qualify as Cinderellas. But an exception might be made for Iowa, given their rise from middle-of-the-pack in the conference and the fact their coach and six of their players came from midmajor Drake.
Some of the players beg to differ.
“I wouldn’t apply that to us,” said Iowa forward Cooper Koch, who is from Peoria. “We were in every game we played in this year, except for maybe two of them. So we had confidence going in that we can beat anybody, and I think we showed that this tournament.”
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