Wisconsin @ Iowa preview

Last Meeting ( Mar 7, 2019 ) Iowa 45, Wisconsin 65

No. 19 Iowa looks to stay in the hunt for its first Big Ten regular season title since 1979 when it hosts Wisconsin on Monday. The Hawkeyes have won four straight contests, including an 85-80 victory over No. 25 Rutgers on Wednesday, to move within 1 1/2 games of Illinois and Michigan State at the top of the conference standings, and they hope to keep rolling by extending their winning streak in Iowa City to nine.

“We beat some good teams this year, but it’s about to get really real,” Iowa forward Luka Garza told reporters. “When you’re halfway through every team is going to give you their best every single night because they’re all in the race.” Wisconsin hit a bump in the road following a 70-51 setback to Purdue on Friday. The Badgers have dropped two of their last three games to become one of nine Big Ten teams to have at least four conference losses, and they hope to separate themselves from the middle of the pack by knocking off the Hawkeyes for the fifth time in the last six road meetings. “When a little bit of adversity hit, we didn’t handle it as well as we have been,” Wisconsin coach Greg Gard told reporters. “We didn’t do a good job of matching the physicality.”

TIME: 8:30 p.m. ET. TV: Big Ten Network

ABOUT WISCONSIN (12-8, 5-4 Big Ten): D’Mitrik Trice and Micah Potter each scored 11 points, but it wasn’t enough as the Badgers fell to their fourth straight defeat in Mackey Arena under Gard. Nate Reuvers added 10 points and Brevin Pritzl tallied eight, but no player finished with more than four rebounds as Wisconsin lost the battle of the boards 42-16, which was their largest disparity on the glass since they were minus-27 against Michigan State in 2000. “We knew coming in that they were the best rebounding team in the Big Ten,” Reuvers told reporters. “That was a focus coming in, but obviously we didn’t do a good enough job with that.”

ABOUT IOWA (14-5, 5-3): Garza scored a team-high 28 points to go along with 13 rebounds and four blocked shots to record his 11th double-double of the season as the Hawkeyes shot 52.7 percent from the floor in the win against Rutgers. Joe Wieskamp went a perfect 6-of-6 from the free throw line en route to 18 points and dished out four assists while Joe Toussaint registered 14 points, seven rebounds and four assists. Ryan Kriener tallied 11 points to finish in double figures for the third straight game and C.J. Fredrick finished with eight as Iowa outscored the Scarlet Knights 9-3 over the final 2:16 of the contest.

BUZZER BEATERS

1. Wisconsin has won eight of the last 10 meetings with Iowa.

2. Garza leads the Big Ten in scoring at 23.2 points per game.

3. Hawkeyes G Connor McCaffery is ranked third nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.83).

PREDICTION: Iowa 79, Wisconsin 72