While the Iowa men’s basketball team is returning to the NCAA tournament for the first time in three years, the program has coaches and players who have previous success winning in postseason play more recently.

The Hawkeyes feel confident their previous experiences will help when they play Clemson on Friday.

“I would say probably just the confidence of knowing that you can win a game in March Madness, especially last year we were underdogs (at Drake), and we weren’t supposed to be able to go there and do it,” said Cam Manyawu, an Iowa junior forward. “Now we are at a Power Five program and you are kind of expected to come in and win some of those games. So now just having the confidence to know that we can do that, and understanding what it takes to win a march madness game, and then also knowing what loses you a march madness game, so taking those lessons and growing from them.”

“It’s all the little, tidy details. That’s the biggest thing because we’ve had a bunch of years where we’ve been really close (at Northwest Missouri State and Drake) where we lose Sweet 16s,” said Ben McCollum, Iowa men’s basketball’s head coach. “We just learned how much those little ‘death by 1,000 paper cuts,’ like, can you do that to another team.”

Iowa men’s basketball last won a game in the NCAA tournament during the 2020-21 season.

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