Iowa vs. Clemson prediction: Why Iowa is favored to win men's March Madness First Round matchup [3/20/2026]

Clemson will face Iowa, in what is expected to be a tight men's college basketball game, at Benchmark International Arena on Friday, commencing at 6:50 PM ET.

For this First Round matchup, Clemson—a veteran team that consistently wins the three-point battle— come up against Iowa, a Ben McCollum team forcing plenty of turnovers.

Based on updated simulation results, Dimers' proven college basketball model gives Iowa a slight edge with a 53% win probability over Clemson.

This article offers an expanded analysis of Friday's Iowa vs. Clemson matchup, including an expanded look at the predicted score, best bets and picks.

Iowa vs. Clemson prediction: Who will win and advance to the Second Round?

Using innovative machine learning and data, we have simulated the outcome of Friday's NCAAM Tournament matchup between Iowa and Clemson 10,000 times as part of our men's college basketball predictions coverage.

Our independent predictive model gives Iowa a 53% chance of defeating Clemson. Our predicted score is Iowa 66-66 Clemson.

According to our model, Clemson (+1.5) has a 55% chance of covering the spread, while the over/under total of 131.5 points has a 54% chance of going over.

While there is no way for a men's college basketball game to end in a tie, our prediction of 66-66 is based on each team's average score in the above-mentioned simulations of Iowa vs. Clemson.

Iowa vs. Clemson odds

We have researched the best men's college basketball odds in America for this game, which are listed here:

All odds are correct at the time of publication and are subject to change.

Iowa vs. Clemson picks and best bet

After matching our probabilities against the best available odds, we can reveal our picks for each of the major markets. Plus, find our best bet for the game below: