No. 5 Seed Iowa Upset By No. 12 Seed Richmond as Hawkeyes Offense Struggles

The No. 5 Iowa Hawkeyes suffered a 67-63 upset loss to the No. 12 Richmond Spiders in the first round of the men's NCAA tournament on Thursday.

Iowa's season surprisingly comes to an end at 26-10. All-American forward Keegan Murray scored 21 points on 8-of-15 shooting with nine rebounds.

Jacob Gilyard led Richmond with 24 points as the team improved to 24-12.

In addition to Gilyard's strong performance, Richmond got 18 points and 11 rebounds from Tyler Burton. Nathan Cayo, who averaged 8.7 points this season, added 15 points on 7-of-11 shooting.

The Hawkeyes were coming off a victory in the Big Ten tournament. The team entered Thursday's contest ranked fourth in the nation in scoring at 83.8 points per game. Iowa had a hard time finding its rhythm against Richmond, finishing with a field-goal percentage of just 36.4 and 20.7 (6-of-29) from three-point range.

The Spiders also did a great job containing Murray despite his high point total, limiting his touches and forcing other players to try to beat them.

Iowa forward Patrick McCaffrey tried to pick up the slack with 18 points on 7-of-17 shooting, but no other player on the team finished with more than six points.

This is the second consecutive year that the Hawkeyes have fallen in the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. Iowa lost to Oregon in the round of 32 in 2021 despite being led by consensus national player of the year Luka Garza. The Hawkeyes have not made it to the Sweet 16 since 1999.

Richmond will face No. 4 Providence in the second round Saturday.