Iowa State +1.5 (2*)
UCONN should not have made the tournament this year, the only reason they were invited is because they are the defending champs and a big name school. UCONN gets credit for being in the Big East but they didn't play well in conference this year. Only notable conference wins are Notre Dame, West Virginia, and USF and really how impressive are those wins? Other than Notre Dame not really impressive at all. And out of the conference wins are just about as unimpressive. The only notable wins out of the Big East for UCONN were against Harvard and Florida State very early in the season. Although those wins are at least mildly impressive, the overall body of work doesn't match up with them being a tourney team this year. Iowa State on the other hand is in the Big 12 which is in my opinion the best conference in all of college basketball this year. Iowa State had quality in-conference wins over Kansas and Missouri both two seeds in the tournament, a regular season ending win over 3 seed Baylor and wins over Kansas State and Texas who are both in the tournament. They didn't have any really special wins out of conference, but that was more due to scheduling than anything else. Iowa State has proven to be able to play with the nations elite while UCONN has yet to do so. Iowa State is a very good 3pt shooting team and UCONN has struggled to defend the three all season so if the three's fall for the Cyclones this one coud get ugly. I expect this to be a fairly close one but Iowa State wil pull away with the win in this one.
UCONN should not have made the tournament this year, the only reason they were invited is because they are the defending champs and a big name school. UCONN gets credit for being in the Big East but they didn't play well in conference this year. Only notable conference wins are Notre Dame, West Virginia, and USF and really how impressive are those wins? Other than Notre Dame not really impressive at all. And out of the conference wins are just about as unimpressive. The only notable wins out of the Big East for UCONN were against Harvard and Florida State very early in the season. Although those wins are at least mildly impressive, the overall body of work doesn't match up with them being a tourney team this year. Iowa State on the other hand is in the Big 12 which is in my opinion the best conference in all of college basketball this year. Iowa State had quality in-conference wins over Kansas and Missouri both two seeds in the tournament, a regular season ending win over 3 seed Baylor and wins over Kansas State and Texas who are both in the tournament. They didn't have any really special wins out of conference, but that was more due to scheduling than anything else. Iowa State has proven to be able to play with the nations elite while UCONN has yet to do so. Iowa State is a very good 3pt shooting team and UCONN has struggled to defend the three all season so if the three's fall for the Cyclones this one coud get ugly. I expect this to be a fairly close one but Iowa State wil pull away with the win in this one.
