Lipscomb Bisons vs Iowa Hawkeyes Prediction, Odds, Best Bets - Week 1

Iowa opens its season at Carver-Hawkeye Arena against a Lipscomb team that has already played, losing 86-79 at Southeast Missouri State on Monday with five players in double figures. The Hawkeyes return less than half of the scoring from last season's Elite Eight team.

The Matchup

Iowa is a 20.5-point favorite over Lipscomb at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City on Tuesday night, with a total of 147.5, on BTN. It is the first meeting ever between the two programs. Iowa finished 24-13 last season and reached the Elite Eight, scoring 74.5 points per game and allowing 66.3. Lipscomb finished 19-13, scoring 79.7 and allowing 75.7. Those are last season's numbers, and both rosters look different now.

Lipscomb has one advantage no other underdog on this slate has. It has already played. The Bisons lost 86-79 at Southeast Missouri State on Monday night, and the loss came with real information. Takai Simpkins scored 22 points and went 11-of-11 at the free throw line.

Freshman Devyn Martin had 13 points and 11 rebounds in 17 minutes. Titas Sargiunas scored 12, Mateo Esmeraldo scored 11, and Kennedy Okpara added 10, so five Bisons reached double figures in a road game.

Simpkins, Esmeraldo and Sargiunas are all preseason All-ASUN picks. Simpkins averaged 12.5 points at Oregon last season and started all 31 games, and Esmeraldo handed out a team-high 223 assists last season. Neither team has an injury report for this game.

Iowa, by contrast, starts over on offense. The Hawkeyes return 45.4 percent of their scoring from the Elite Eight team, and their top three scorers are gone. Their top returning scorer is Cooper Koch, who averaged 7.8 points a game and made 66 three-pointers, and he was one of only three Hawkeyes to start every game last season.

Kael Combs led Iowa with 13 points in its only public exhibition, a win over Illinois Springfield, and Saint Mary's transfer Andrew McKeever had 7 assists in 14 minutes in that game and sits on the preseason watch list for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award. Iowa was picked 10th in the Big Ten preseason media poll.

Key Factors

The matchup lever is how Lipscomb scores. The Bisons shot 36.2 percent from three last season and took about 48 percent of their shots from behind the arc, which is the profile that turns a big spread into a nervous fourth quarter, because three-point variance does not care about the building.

Iowa's defense allowed just 66.3 points a game last season, but opponents shot 45.9 percent from the field against the Hawkeyes, a bottom-tier mark nationally. The low points allowed came from a slow pace, not from stopping shots, and a visiting team willing to shoot early and often tests exactly that.

Free throws are the second lever, and Lipscomb showed it on Monday. The Bisons went 22-of-25 at the line at Southeast Missouri State, and Simpkins got there 11 times by himself. Points with the clock stopped are how an underdog survives the stretches when the home crowd gets loud and the shots stop falling, and a team that has already played one road game has already lived through one of those stretches this week.

The counterpoint is rest, and it is not a small one. Lipscomb plays its second road game in two days to open the season, while Iowa has not played a game that counts. Iowa has won its last 14 season openers, the building will be full and fresh, and if the Hawkeyes' size wears the Bisons down inside, tired legs show up first on the defensive glass and on closeouts. Lipscomb also turned the ball over 15 times on Monday. Fifteen more against Iowa, in this building, is how a competitive game becomes a blowout.

Every pick is published with its line before the game. Odds via consensus sportsbooks at time of writing and move constantly. Must be 21+. If gambling is a problem, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER.