Hlas: Now things really get real for Hawkeyes

The Beatles were two months from breaking up the last time Iowa won its first seven Big Ten men's basketball games.

Which indicates this: Starting 7-0 in the Big Ten is hard. Also, the Rolling Stones have stayed together a long, long time.

But let's dwell on the former. As elusive as a 7-0 conference record has been for the Hawkeyes since they went through league play unbeaten in 1970, they can reach that mark Sunday with a victory over Purdue.

That would put Iowa in a tie with Indiana for the league-lead. The difference is the Hawkeyes would have managed that over a schedule with almost as many bumps as my street.

For the fourth time, Iowa will face a ranked Big Ten opponent. For the second time, that foe is Purdue, the only conference team to have finished within 10 points of the Hawkeyes. But Iowa outscored the Boilermakers 50-26 in the second half of its 70-63 win at West Lafayette, Ind.

You can take all those numbers, and deposit them in the nearest circular file. Because on Thursday night we got a whiff of what life will be like for the Hawkeyes the rest of the way if they don't come out with the focus and crispness they displayed in their first five league games (excluding the first-half at Purdue).

Iowa's first-half in its 90-76 win at Rutgers wasn't pretty. The Hawkeyes looked too hurried on offense, too lax on defense. They righted things nicely as the second half progressed, and took care of business the way everyone on the basketball planet expected.

Was that temporary step backward inevitable for an Iowa team that had been playing at an extremely high level for almost the entire month? Quite possibly. Will the Hawkeyes be fully focused Sunday when a Carver-Hawkeye Arena capacity crowd is behind them as they play the 22nd-ranked Boilermakers? It seems a certainty.

Which is for the best, because Iowa is entering a pivotal week on its quest to get a regular-season Big Ten title for the first time since 1979. Purdue Sunday, at Maryland Thursday. Split the two, and you're still in very good shape. Win both, and you officially rock.

There is a third possibility. A pair of losses means all the giddy talk about championships and No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tourney brackets of the moment goes away.

But don't dwell on that, because there's a big-picture topic that's more interesting and exciting. Namely, the first 23 days of January have shown us there isn't one monster team or more running roughshod somewhere in America.

Maybe one or more will emerge as the next six or seven weeks play out. Maybe North Carolina or Oklahoma or Maryland will pull everything together and show some separation from everyone else.

But right now, on a neutral court, no one would be a big or even medium-sized favorite over Iowa.

The trouble is, that's conceptual and has no bearing on today or the rest of the Big Ten season. You could also say no one in the nation would be a considerable favorite on a neutral floor against Purdue, which is 17-3 overall and 5-2 in the Big Ten.

So what you want to do is keep protecting your home court, which gives you a chance to track down big prizes and accolades. The 1986-87 season was the last time Iowa was 6-0 in the Big Ten. It then played Ohio State at home, lost, and went on to finish 14-4 in the conference.

Iowa finished a game out of first-place that season. These home games against good teams are big, folks. Sunday's game is big.