Alvaro Folgueiras Adds to March Legacy as Iowa Advances to Elite Eight

Alvaro Folgueiras is quickly cementing himself as an Iowa legend due to his clutch play in the NCAA Tournament, but what he has done over the last two games of the tournament is creating such a buzz that he is slowly becoming one of those players that fans of not only Iowa and Robert Morris, but rather any college basketball fan, will remember for a long time.

Despite a rather quiet opening round game against Clemson, Folgueiras has been the talk of the college basketball landscape through the Round of 32 and Sweet 16 and it is not because of anything but his timely plays off of the bench for an Iowa team that clinched a spot in the Elite Eight for the first time since 1987.

It all started when Folgueiras captured his “One Shining Moment” in the Hawkeyes’ Round of 32 win over Florida. With his mother in attendance, who he has not played in front of in America in over two years, Folgueiras sunk the game-winning three that was heard around the world to stun the defending champs.

Following the game against Florida, Folgueiras dropped an iconic one-liner to the media declaring “March is for the dreamers” which only heightened his legendary status even further among college basketball fans and media.

Then, just when things started to cool down for Folgueiras as the Hawkeyes keyed in on their Sweet 16 matchup against Nebraska, he added to his March legacy with a signature performance that helped send Iowa to the Elite Eight for the first time in nearly 40 years.

Folgueiras has played starter-like minutes off of the bench for Ben McCollum’s squad all season long, but after the Hawkeyes found themselves down by 10 roughly 15 minutes into Thursday’s Sweet 16 game, McCollum turned to Folgueiras to provide a spark and it immediately paid off.

Folgueiras pumped life back into his team and the Iowa faithful as he threw down the first of a pair of poster dunks which helped the Hawkeyes cut the deficit down to just three by halftime.

Folgueiras would then go quiet offensively for a chunk of the game, despite still impacting the game defensively and on the glass, but that was until the final five minutes of the game where he really added to his already great March Legacy.

Folgueiras had just 8 points until his three-pointer with 5:03 remaining tied the game up at 65-65.

A couple of minutes later, with just under a minute left, Folgueiras basically iced the game for the Hawkeyes when he noticed Nebraska only had four player on the court for the ensuing inbound play which allowed him to have a free run down the court to catch the inbound and go up for a dunk.

Not only did he slam home the game, he was fouled from behind doing so which sent the crowd into a frenzy.

That was not it for Folgueiras though, as he added insult to injury for Nebraska 20 seconds later when the defense lost him again. In a situation where most teams would dribble clock out, Alvaro Folgueiras did not hesitate to try to put a bow on the victory.

After he drove baseline and rose up for another dunk, for whatever reason a Cornhusker defender jumped with him, and he threw down the exclamation point dunk over the defender.

He finished the game with 16 points, shot a near perfect 6-of-7 from the field and added three more memorable moments to his March legacy. With another guaranteed game ahead of him, and Iowa being just two wins away from playing for a National Championship, there is no telling how big the lore of Alvaro Folgueiras will become.