Iowa Basketball Jumps All The Way Up To #9 In The Polls After A Stunning String Of Victories
So all this last season for Iowa football the narrative that ran alongside their undefeated regular season was, “Yeah but look at their schedule. It’s Charmin soft. It’s softer than your dick after thinking about your dead grandma. If they had played such and such teams in the Big Ten East they wouldn’t even be on the national radar blah blah blah” We heard it all year long and it was probably true despite us trying to pretend it wasn’t. Well the Iowa basketball is just like that through 17 games except the complete opposite. People refer to Iowa’s basketball schedule as point of strength and how amazing it is that they’ve beat the teams they have. Fran and the boys are currently on a 7-game win streak that includes monster wins like beating #1 Michigan State by double digits in Iowa City (without Denzel Valentine), beating #14 Purdue at Mackey Arena then beating #4 Michigan State again by double digits this time with Denzel Valentine and on the road in East Lansing. Sprinkle in other wins against B1G opponents like Nebraska and Michigan and we’ve got ourselves a 5-0 conferecne start for the first time since ’96-’97. The best team in the B1G? I wouldn’t argue with that. Bring on Maryland.
Iowa is doing it with a mix of great play from their starting five combined with awesome play from their bench. Jarrod Uthoff and Peter Jok (and occasionally the second coming of Kareem, Adam Woodbury) lead the scoring charge for the starters while Mike Gesell has really grown into his role as a floor general. Some nights he’ll have 2 points and other nights he’ll have 20 points. Basically whatever the team needs on that given night Gesell provides. But the real key to this team seems to be the surprising bench play from guys like Dom Uhl, Nicholas Baer Ahmad Wagner and Brady Ellingson. One of the many joys of this season so far has been watching teams get caught off guard by just how good of a basketball player Baer is. You could say this about a lot of Iowa players but Nicholas Baer couldn’t look less like a basketball player and yet he has incredible instincts on the court. Combine everything I’ve said above and Fran has himself a pretty damn good basketball team in Iowa City. It’s a nice distraction after the B1G Championship and the Rose Bowl that’s for sure.
Bottom line is good luck stopping this athletic freight train when it plays your favorite college basketball team