Iowa returns home looking to erase the sting of a current two-game losing streak.
Before the two-game skid, the Hawkeyes were on the precipice of second place in the league standings. Now, Iowa (17-11, 9-8 Big Ten) is all the way back in a tie for eighth.
The good news is it’s officially a sellout crowd that will be gathering inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena versus Michigan State (17-10, 9-7 Big Ten).
That’s fantastic news for an Iowa team that desperately needs a win to keep itself from slipping into NCAA Tournament bubble conversations. Over their past two games, the Hawkeyes have connected on just 6-of-52 3-point tries.
That’s an icy 11.5% from downtown. Iowa head men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery wasn’t putting a ton of stock into the idea that the frosty shooting was simply a byproduct of the Hawkeyes playing away from Carver.
“Yeah, I don’t really think much of it. Kids are playing hard. We haven’t shot it well a number of times. But we have shot it well at times. Just got to make some threes. Kids are playing hard. They’re playing defense. They’re moving it, sharing it. It’s not like we’re taking bad shots,” McCaffery said.
Iowa has been down this road before this season. The Hawkeyes started 0-3 in Big Ten play before rattling off wins in seven of their next nine.
McCaffery is counting on his team demonstrating that type of resiliency once again tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. CT when it welcomes in the Spartans.
“Yeah, throughout the course of the year, a lot of things happen. You have injuries. You think about when we played a 10:30 game in New York and got home at 5 a.m., and we had to play less than 40 hours later. The kids played great.
“You just move on to the next. You don’t obsess about it. We bussed home yesterday, we didn’t bus home after the game. So what? We’re going to bus home one way or the other. What difference does it make what time we get back? You have to stay locked in, and if you have some guys that are out, you step up and do your job,” McCaffery said.
A sellout crowd certainly can’t hurt the Hawkeyes’ chances of rebounding and finding their shooting touch.
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