Iowa on the Rise

Only January 1st I wasn't very happy after the Iowa football team lost to Stanford 45-16 in the Rose Bowl, but luckily that didn't last very long. Because two days later on January 3rd, the Iowa basketball team came back from 19 down to beat then #14 Purdue 70-63 on the road. Also before the Rose Bowl, Iowa basketball beat #1 Michigan State 83-70. Although some have said that win doesn't mean that much because Michigan State was without their star player Denzel Valentine, but I don't buy that.

Because of all of this Iowa is suddenly one of the hotter teams in college basketball right now, they've started 3-0 in Big Ten play and are 12-3 overall. The next game up for the Hawkeyes is a rematch against Michigan State, but this time it's on the road, and MSU will probably have Denzel Valentine back. So I doubt many people are expecting Iowa to win, but if they do they could vault all the way into the top 5. After all Iowa has played an extremely tough schedule, and still has some tough ones left. Iowa has already played #13 Iowa State(lost 83-82), #5 Michigan State, and #20 Purdue. They still have to play rematches against MSU, Purdue, and have a really tough game at #3 Maryland. But other than that Iowa will be expected to win at least 9 of the other 12 games remaining on their schedule. Some people would say that they should win all of those games but I see Iowa going around 9-3 or 10-2 outside of their really tough games. At this point Iowa would have to have a colossal meltdown to miss the tournament. I think a 20 win Iowa team would make it in to the tournament, and there are certainly eight winnable games left on Iowa's schedule.

For me it's tough to really buy into the fact that Iowa could be an elite team especially after the meltdown in the 2013-14 season when Iowa had Devyn Marble, who is now a reserve for the Orlando Magic. In that season Iowa made it all the way into the top 10 and at one point they were 19-6. Iowa ended up finishing the season 20-13, they finished the regular season 20-11 and promptly lost in the Big Ten tournament and the NCAA tournament. However this years team could be special, as long as they stay together and stay focused.