MSU-Iowa is kind of a big deal

These are the games you want if you're Iowa basketball.

You're 2-0 in the Big Ten, you're playing the league's basketball gold standard in Michigan State at home Thursday night, and it's on ESPN. Not ESPN2, ESPNU, or ESPN Yoo Hoo.

Dan Shulman and Jay Bilas are on the ESPN call. That's A-Team personnel. Win and play well in front of them, and they'll sell your virtues to North America.

The Hawkeyes have won the two most important games on their entire schedule to date. I'm not talking North Carolina or Iowa State. No, they won at Ohio State and beat Nebraska at home. Conference games. They're 2-0 with Maryland, Purdue and Wisconsin. Maryland is at Illinois and Purdue is at Wisconsin tonight.

It's way early to talk about who's in first, and so forth, but enjoy it while you have that zero in the loss column. Iowa hadn't started 2-0 in the league since 2003, so savor it if you're the Hawkeyes.

If you keep that zero by beating Michigan State, you're entitled to be very excited. Next week's two games are at Minnesota (0-3 in the league, not that it makes that game anything resembling easy) and Ohio State at home.

Beat Michigan State, and that puts 5-0 in play. It doesn't make it likely, but it puts it legitimately in play. And, it pumps some woefully needed positive energy into Iowa athletics.

(Not that there isn't good energy being supplied by the Hawkeyes women's basketball team. They take their 2-0 Big Ten record to Illinois tonight.)

Michigan State doesn't have the talent it's had in most of its two decades under Tom Izzo. I saw some of the telecast of the Dec. 30 Maryland-MSU game while I was in a Jacksonville restaurant, and it was hard to watch. It was not entertaining or artful. Ten days earlier, the unthinkable happened and Texas Southern left the Breslin Center with a win.

But the Spartans beat Indiana 70-50 in East Lansing Monday night. Their time is always after New Year's. They win more on the road in the Big Ten than anybody. They helped begin the squashing of Iowa's dreams last year with a January overtime win in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

So, this game has more than enough ingredients to make it significant. And that's what you want, for the games to really mean something. Iowa was a team getting considerable criticism after it lost to Iowa State and Northern Iowa in December. Defeat Michigan State Thursday, and it's raking in the hosannas.

Fifteen conference games will remain no matter what. But they won't all feel as important as this one.