Ohio State out of Hawkeyes' league -- and almost everyone else's

IOWA CITY – So when it comes to men's college basketball, Iowa isn't Ohio State.

That's OK. Neither is anyone else in the Big Ten. Neither is just about anyone else in college basketball.

The rebirth of Hawkeyes hoops didn't take a step backward Saturday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena despite the unattractiveness of Iowa's 76-47 loss to the No. 6 Buckeyes.

As January turns into February into March, it will become ever-clearer that getting routed by Ohio State was no disgrace. With a 9-player rotation featuring eight sophomores and freshmen, Thad Matta has another monster of a team.

The Buckeyes could make a long list of things they didn't do well in the first half of this game, but the enduring memory was of defensive stifling that led to a 28-19 halftime lead.

Then, three starters who missed over half of the first 20 minutes because they had two fouls played like they had never left the game's flow. They all scored in the first 2:08 of the second half, quickly and ruthlessly turning a game that was within shouting distance for Iowa into a pretty quiet arena for one that contained 15,400 fans.

“We've got a lot of weapons,” said OSU sophomore forward Deshaun Thomas, stating the obvious.

“We kept defending them,” Matta said, stating the obvious.

“We're still learning,” McCaffery said, stating the obvious.

That just-like-old-times feeling in the gym was fun while it lasted. A traffic snafu outside the arena. Long lines at concession stands. Explosions of crowd noise during pregame introductions, and when the Hawkeyes got on mini-runs in the first half.

It was an unfortunate piece of scheduling luck for Iowa. Had one of several other Big Ten teams come to Carver this day, the Hawkeyes might have been able to ride to a third-consecutive win on the backs of the crowd.

But the opponent was Ohio State, which has a stellar senior guard named William Buford who played in his 100th career win Saturday. Winning begets good recruiting. Good recruiting begets more winning.

So does defending. The Buckeyes played perimeter defense the way the Hawkeyes hadn't seen it played against them this season.

“The defense is the key to our offense,” OSU's Jared Sullinger said. “Once we play good defense, I think our offense plays like no other.”

Sullinger had 15 of his 28 points in the first-half and played a prominent role in that choking defense. He had four steals. His team had 12.

Sullinger is all substance. He will make one downtrodden NBA franchise ecstatic come lottery-ball night in June.

“He's just so quick. He's so elusive, you now, for a guy with that size,” McCaffery said of the 6-foot-9, 280-pound sophomore.

“His hands -- he's got the best pair of hands I've ever seen. He catches everything. He finishes everything. And he's amazingly quick, whether it's a spin or an up-and-under, whatever he's doing.”

Iowa, in case you didn't notice, has nothing resembling a Sullinger. Which makes it among college basketball's 99-percenters.

While his fellow starters kept getting vanquished to the bench with two first-half fouls, Sullinger just played bigger.

“Welcome to the Big Ten,” Sullinger said. “We had some home-made calls, if I can say that. You've just got to play through it.”

The Hawkeyes would have loved to have given give a better account of themselves, of course. They didn't have a player who covered himself with glory. But they needed to be near-perfect to have a chance to win, and needed Ohio State had to be lethargic. No such luck.

“Fran's building a heck of a program here,” Matta said. “We had a great awareness of what we were going up against. (Iowa) winning at Wisconsin and winning at Minnesota obviously heightened our guys' awareness.”

“It can sometimes be a bumpy ride when you're building as we are,” said McCaffery. “It takes time. As we mature we'll be better able to handle the situation, this environment.”

But at least the energy that comes from genuinely enthusiastic and appreciative fans was here for a while Saturday, and will be return sooner rather than later.

Fans' feelings about this program are warmer than they were two weeks or two months ago. Nothing that happened here against a great team should change that.

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