With the men’s Iowa basketball team’s season beginning tonight, here’s which five games in their grueling schedule look to be the most difficult.
After being criticized for a weak non-conference schedule last season, the Iowa basketball team sure responded with quite the opposite for the 2019-2020 season, which could be good or bad depending on if they survive and thrive or falter early on.
Once they wrap up their difficult non-conference schedule (#13 Texas Tech plus three other teams receiving top-25 votes), they’ve got a difficult per usual Big Ten schedule to deal with.
All in all, the Hawks will get games against ten teams that are currently ranked or are receiving votes to be ranked. While that can certainly change (just look at Oregon and UConn last year), that’s no schedule to wag your finger at this point.
With that being said, picking the top five toughest games the Iowa basketball team has this season wasn’t difficult because I couldn’t find any, rather, it was difficult because there were so many to choose from.
Toughest Game #5: Iowa vs #18 Ohio State on February 20th
I hate to like Ohio State, but I think this team is actually underrated heading into the 2019-2020 season. They return both Wesson brothers and they now have five-star guard DJ Carton, an Iowa native, running the point. I truly think Ohio State could challenge for the Big Ten Conference title this year, and even though this is at Carver-Hawkeye, this will be one of the toughest games on their schedule.
Toughest Game #4: Iowa vs #13 Texas Tech on November 28th
This is the first big test on the Iowa basketball team’s schedule when they take on the Texas Tech Red Raiders in the Las Vegas Invitational. Thankfully, this game is not in Lubbock, where the crowd can be pretty ecstatic (oddly enough, I know the experience as I’ve seen the Red Raiders play in Lubbock). That being said, I don’t have TTU as high as others might because I’m not quite sure what to expect from this team. They are returning just one of their top five scorers from last year’s National Championship Runner-up squad. They did get a big-time grad transfer in TJ Holyfield and landing four-star recruit Jahmi’us Ramsey was huge, but the jury is out for now.
Toughest Game #3: Iowa @ Syracuse on December 3rd
Last year, the Iowa basketball team got an easy ACC/Big Ten draw with Pitt, but this year they’ve got a relatively rough matchup against Syracuse, a team garnering some top-25 consideration early in the year. What makes this difficult is having to go to New York and play on Syracuse’s home court, which is never easy. KenPom currently gives the Hawks a 46% chance of winning, which is honestly higher than I thought it would be.
Toughest Game #2: Iowa @ #7 Maryland on January 30th
The Terrapins lost Bruno Fernando from last year’s tournament-bound squad but they return their point guard Anthony Cowan and former five-star recruit Jalen Smith in addition to three other top-100 recruits. The ceiling for this team is high, and heading to the East Coast is almost certainly not going to end well for the Hawks this year.
Toughest Game #1: Iowa @ #1 Michigan State on February 25th.
Despite falling to Kentucky, Michigan State looks really good under the leadership of star guard Cassius Winston, last year’s Big Ten Player of the Year. In addition to having one of the most talented teams in the Tom Izzo era (which is saying something), the Iowa basketball team struggles mightily in East Lansing. They’ve literally won one game there since 1993.
While the entire schedule is expected to be tough, these are the five games I expect to be the biggest challenges as of right now. And if the Iowa basketball team can 3-2 in these 5 games, I would consider that a huge success.