Pregame glance: Iowa

While most of the Buckeye nation will be fixed on the Sugar Bowl Tuesday night, the men’s basketball team will be engaged in their own competitive endeavors as they travel to the University of Iowa to take on the Hawkeyes. After beating Indiana on Friday night, it’s fair to say that the Buckeyes will be facing an even weaker Big Ten opponent in Iowa, who likely will finish at the bottom of the conference this season. However, Ohio State had better not have their attention diverted checking on football scores, or the Hawkeyes could very well steal a game playing on their home court.

Iowa enters the game at an overall mark of 7-6. They dropped their Big Ten opener to Illinois by a score of 87-77 to begin what will probably be a very challenging conference basketball season in Iowa City. Iowa’s other losses this year have been fairly close (78-72 vs. Long Beach State, 76-73 vs. Wake Forest, 75-72 vs. Iowa State), but this team is a far cry from the 2005-2006 team that won the Big Ten Tournament.

Iowa has never really recovered since that 2005-2006 season, which brought hope of an extended NCAA Tournament run but instead ended in a first round exit.  Iowa entered the tournament as the #3 seed but were shocked by #14 seed Northwestern State and sent home early.  The following year the Hawkeyes went 17-13 and failed to make it into either the NCAA or the NIT Tournaments, leading to the resignation of head coach Steve Alford, a change that many Hawkeye fans felt was overdue.  New coach Todd Lickliter failed to improve on Alford’s accomplishments though, garnering records of 13-19, 15-17, and 10-22 before being fired.

Lickliter was replaced by current coach Fran McCaffery, who has brought excitement to the program despite the continuation of regular losses thus far.  McCaffery has some pieces to begin building with, as the team only has two players that will be leaving due to graduation at the end of the season.  Leading scorer Matt Gatens will be one player returning next year, as will the team’s next two top scoring threats, Eric May and Bryce Cartwright.

Illinois’ performance against the Hawkeyes nicely mirrored Ohio State’s play against Indiana in some ways, as the Illini shot 13-18 and the Buckeyes shot 13-19 from downtown.  If Iowa learns from their game and makes some adjustments, don’t expect a repeat performance from Ohio State with respect to three-balls.  Rather, this could easily turn into another big game for Jared Sullinger, if not in scoring then at least in overall effectiveness.  If the Hawkeyes bring the double team for Sully, Ohio State should be able to spread around the wealth.  Alternatively, Deshaun Thomas may get in the game early and end up posting 30+ before all is said and done.

The Buckeyes will face the Hawkeyes at 9:00pm, and the game can be seen on the Big Ten Network.