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Iowa\u2019s Alvaro Folgueiras knocked down a clutch 3 to knock out defending champion Florida Sunday.<\/p>\n
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Alvaro Folgueiras\u00a0nailed a 3-pointer with 4.5 seconds remaining and Iowa eliminated defending national champion Florida, sending the top-seeded Gators home with a 73-72 win Sunday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
Under first-year coach Ben McCollum, Iowa reached the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2015, while Florida (27-8) became the first No. 1 seed to be knocked out of this year\u2019s March Madness.<\/p>\n
The ninth-seeded Hawkeyes (23-12) wasted a 12-point lead in the second half but rallied in the final minutes. They will face\u00a0No. 4 seed Nebraska\u00a0in the South Region semifinals Thursday night in Houston.<\/p>\n
Xaivian Lee\u2019s driving layup put Florida ahead 71-68 with under two minutes left. Bennett Stirtz answered with a floater to cut it to 71-70 with 57 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n
After Thomas Haugh missed a 3-pointer, Stirtz missed a running layup and Isaiah Brown grabbed the rebound with 8.9 seconds left. Brown made his second free throw.<\/p>\n
But Iowa easily broke Florida\u2019s full-court press and Folguerias was wide open in the corner for his 3. Florida didn\u2019t get a shot off before the buzzer, with Lee\u2019s desperate drive ending with a pass that Haugh couldn\u2019t handle.<\/p>\n
Coming off a 59-point victory over Prairie View A&M on Friday night, Florida played like a team that hadn\u2019t been tested.<\/p>\n
It felt like a home game for the Gators, who played in front of a sea of orange and blue at Benchmark International Arena, home of the Tampa Bay Lightning.<\/p>\n
Tavion Banks led Iowa with 20 points, Folgueiras had 14 and Stirtz finished with 13 on another off night when he shot just 5 of 16. Cooper Kock scored 12 points on four 3s.<\/p>\n
Alex Condon led Florida with 21 points, Haugh had 19 and Lee added 17.<\/p>\n
A scuffle broke out just past the midpoint of the first half with Iowa leading 19-13 when Condon and Folgueiras battled for a loose ball.<\/p>\n
Both players went to the floor holding on tightly. Folgueiras swung his arm back but didn\u2019t follow through with a punch and the players had to be separated.<\/p>\n
Florida coach Todd Golden sprinted onto the floor to help calm things down, and both players were assessed technical fouls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iowa\u2019s Alvaro Folgueiras knocked down a clutch 3 to knock out defending champion Florida Sunday. TAMPA, Fla. (AP)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,93105,29,89901],"class_list":{"0":"post-201977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-iowa","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-ncaa-tournament-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}