Iowa Hawkeyes need a win, any win. Enter Minnesota.

Twenty-one games into its season, the Iowa men’s basketball team lacks a signature win.

For now, the Hawkeyes would be happy just to get some ink back into their pens.

After losses in three of their last four games dropped them to 4-6 in the Big Ten, the Hawkeyes need to beat somebody, anybody. That anybody comes to Carver-Hawkeye Arena Sunday afternoon in the form of Minnesota, a team with its own problems.

After winning 11 of their first 12 games, the Gophers ran into a problem on their schedule. Namely, the Big Ten portion of it. Minnesota has lost seven of its last eight games including an 81-71 decision to Iowa in Minneapolis three weeks ago.

So Iowa has an imminently beatable foe. Yet, it has no reason to feel that way about any opponent given the way it has shot, rebounded, and moved the ball around lately. The Hawkeyes have made but 35.1 percent of their field goal tries in the last four games, and you don’t need much more statistical knowledge than that to know things haven’t gone well recently.

Maybe it was for the best that Iowa couldn’t get to Ohio State for its scheduled game there Thursday. The Hawkeyes may have needed a pause.

Sunday’s game will bring change. The question is how much. We know Iowa’s sideline will look different with assistant coach Billy Taylor serving as acting head coach with Fran McCaffery at home in COVID protocol.

Will the starting lineup McCaffery assigns to Taylor will be the one we’ve seen for 18 of the 21 games, and would have seen for all 21 had Patrick McCaffery not missed two games and Keegan Murray one?

How will point guard responsibilities be shared? Sophomore substitute Ahron Ulis was Iowa’s guy at the point in both overtimes of the Hawkeyes’ most-recent game, a 90-86 loss at Penn State.

Is there a chance Jordan Bohannon slides back to the point guard role he held from his first game at Iowa in 2016, opening a place in the starting lineup for sophomore guard Tony Perkins or the Hawkeyes’ second-leading scorer in Big Ten play, freshman forward Kris Murray?

Murray averages 11 points in conference play despite playing only 19.4 minutes per game.

Bohannon switched to the No. 2 guard role before this season to cede the job at the point to Joe Toussaint, with Ulis the backup. Bohannon hasn’t produced at his previous levels, and has seemed less effective without the ball in his hands more. He averages 7.6 points and is shooting just 25.5 percent from 3-point distance in Big Ten play, which would be career-lows for the sixth-year senior.

Iowa was still 24th in the NCAA’s NET rankings entering Saturday. You have to get that conference won-lost record looking respectable, though, before you can seriously discuss NCAA tournament bracketology.

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