The Buckeyes remain the favorite to win the Big Ten, but the loss to Indiana shows nothing is certain, and Iowa certainly would like to be another roadblock.
Iowa coach Fran McCaffery's team is 2-1 in the conference, and can solidify itself as a viable Big Ten contender with an upset of Ohio State.COLUMBUS, Ohio — Four days after Iowa provided a first step, but far from a definite answer, toward determining a Republican presidential nominee, the Big Ten basketball race will hold its version of a caucus when Ohio State visits Iowa City today.
The Buckeyes are still the frontrunner, picked unanimously to win the Big Ten by a poll of 24 conference writers surveyed by the Columbus Dispatch in October, and continuing to hold that designation despite the loss at Indiana last Saturday. But as that loss to the Hoosiers showed, there may be more contenders in the Big Ten this season that could run a negative ad (pull an upset) that could at least slightly alter the view of Ohio State.
Indiana was one, and Iowa may be another.
In the previous three seasons, the Hoosiers (8-46) and Hawkeyes (13-41) owned the Big Ten basement, losing by far the most conference games in the Big Ten, with Northwestern and Penn State next with 22 wins. But both appear to have turned the corner, as No. 6 Ohio State (14-2) already found out with a 74-71 loss in Bloomington. Now Iowa, after winning just four Big Ten games in each of the last two years, is off to a 2-1 conference start with road wins at Wisconsin and Minnesota.
"Where do you go from here?" Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said at his news conference in Iowa on Friday. "We lose the next six in a row, it's like, OK, they won a couple of games a while ago. The reason we won those two games is we're playing better. It's pretty simple. Now we have to continue to play even better."
The Buckeyes had won six in a row against both the Hoosiers and Hawkeyes coming into this season. Ohio State is at something of a "where do you go from here?" moment as well, at 1-2 on the road so far this season, though rarely at full strength in those games. As OSU coach Thad Matta pointed out, star Jared Sullinger missed the Kansas road loss with back problems, sat out all but six minutes of a close road win at South Carolina with foot problems, and missed 10 minutes of the first half at Indiana with foul trouble.
"With where we've played this year and with some of the hands we've been dealt in those games . . . those are things I talked about this week, that we've got to learn to play with adversity," Matta said. "Crowd, foul trouble, whatever it is, we've got to be better than that."
In games like this, the Buckeyes almost always have been in recent years, fighting past troubles to find a way to win, like at Iowa last year, when Ohio State trailed by six at the half before pulling out a 73-68 win.
"We got off to a horrific 20-minute start, but we played through it," Matta said.
That's what was expected. The frontrunner took a few hits but came out on top.
"You remember last year's game where everybody talks about how we played well against Ohio State losing by five," McCaffery said. "They went on a 16-0 run, we turned it over seven times in that stretch. It's hard to win. It's hard to win. Now, we fought back. Got it to a one or two possession game, and that's great, but we lost the game nine minutes before that."
That's what was expected. The underdog grabbed some attention, but in the end, didn't have enough.
Could any of that change today? Indiana was picked to finish eighth in the preseason, but is polling much higher now at 14-1 and No. 12 in the nation. Iowa was picked ninth in the preseason poll, and is only 10-6 overall, but clearly is more competitive.
"Now we've got more weapons. But more importantly, we've got a better understanding of what we want to do," McCaffery said. "I think this team is better prepared to handle that certainly than last year's team was."
They've been helped, though. As Matta noted, the Badgers were 3-for-28 on 3-pointers in their loss to Iowa, the Golden Gophers 4-for-23 in theirs. But Ohio State didn't shoot well last time out, going just 2-of-17 from 3-point range in Tuesday's win over Nebraska.
Still, if the Buckeyes play as expected, not much should change today. Ohio State will march toward the expected nomination, and the Hawkeyes will reconsider their campaign. But if Iowa can do what Indiana did, then everyone will know this race has changed.
The Ohio State Buckeyes need to cut down on turnovers as they visit Iowa on Saturday. CineSport's Brian Clark and The Plain Dealer's Doug Lesmerises discuss.
For more Cinesport video, go here.
Source: http://www.cleveland.com/osu/index.ssf/2012/01/ohio_state_mens_basketball_tea_8.html
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