Game day for Gonzaga-Iowa

Gonzaga and Iowa meet later today at KeyArena with a berth in the Sweet 16 on the line. It’s an intriguing matchup with both teams boasting size, experience and underappreciated defenses.

The battle of the bigs will be a fun one to watch. One factor barely discussed in the numerous articles I read this morning, and one that always plays a huge role in NCAA tournament games: the guards. When Mark Few talks about how much the program will miss Gary Bell Jr. and Kevin Pangos after they graduate, this is what he’s talking about — the two seniors combined for 31 points, seven assists, three rebounds, two steals, one block, zero turnover in 77 minutes against North Dakota State. And Bell turned in another solid defensive effort on NDSU’s Lawrence Alexander.

Iowa’s starting guards, Mike Gesell and Peter Jok, were impressive in a victory over Davidson, combining for 27 points, seven rebounds and six assists and zero turnovers in 57 minutes.

Here’s our Zag coverage: Preview , notebook , look at the Wiltjer-White matchup and John Blanchette’s column . Hawkeyes coverage in the Des Moines Register can be found here .