Everything points to Hawkeyes owning Big Ten men’s basketball winning record Sunday

Friday night’s news that the postponed Feb. 3 Iowa-Ohio State men’s basketball game in Columbus had been rescheduled to Feb. 19 means one thing for the Hawkeyes:

An especially daunting week is ahead.

Iowa plays Michigan in Iowa City Thursday night. That’s a handful in itself, but then the Hawkeyes will turn around and fly to Columbus Friday for a game against the 16th-ranked Buckeyes the next afternoon and … stop the music.

“We’re not going to worry about it,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said Saturday morning. “Just play the game when it’s scheduled.”

The Hawkeyes must face Nebraska first, Sunday at 1 p.m. in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. That’s all that matters now. Iowa is an overwhelming favorite to win against a Huskers team that is 1-12 in the Big Ten and … stop the music again.

“I’ve been impressed with a lot of things that they’re doing,” McCaffery said. “Their personnel is really good. They’ve got a lot of pieces.

“They’ve lost some really, really tight games. They played well, they lost by two, lost by three, whatever. So they’re right there. You knew at some point they were going to beat somebody. They won the last game, they played extremely well.”

Nebraska did win its last game, 78-65 over Minnesota in Lincoln Wednesday to end a 19-game losing streak to high-major opponents. It was quite a rebound from its 87-63 home loss to Northwestern on Feb. 5.

However, that one ray of sunlight against the Gophers didn’t begin to alter the notion that there won’t be a basketball turnaround in Lincoln under former Iowa State player and coach Fred Hoiberg.

Hoiberg was 115-56 in five seasons as Iowa State’s coach from 2010-2015. He was 46-26 in the Big 12 with NCAA tourney appearances in each of his last four years, including one Sweet 16.

Nothing of the sort has happened for him at Nebraska in three seasons. The Huskers are 6-46 in Big Ten games and are trying to avoid their third-straight last-place finish. The roster has been a turnstile from season to season. There has been zero traction.

“It’s a team that, in my opinion, is substantially better than their record would indicate,” McCaffery said. “Especially when you analyze their personnel. I think they have a deeper club than they had last year.”

Coaches see the best in opponents. The rest of the world sees won-lost records, scores, statistics. It sees Nebraska is last in the Big Ten in scoring margin and rebound margin, has allowed 92 or more points three times in league play, and is going to Iowa, where it lost 102-64 last March.

Meanwhile, the Hawkeyes are fresh off a 110-87 win at Maryland Thursday, the Hawkeyes’ highest point-total in a Big Ten game since 1995.

Iowa knows what is immediately ahead this week, and after that. Its two-game, three-day gauntlet with Michigan and Ohio State actually is a three-game, six-day gauntlet capped by a Feb. 22 home game against Michigan State.

Right now, though, the Hawkeyes can get to 7-6 in the Big Ten. That would be their first time above the .500 mark in league play this season.

With a healthy team, a Sunday afternoon home crowd, an eminently beatable foe, and wind at their back after wins of 14 and 23 points in the last week, everything points toward Iowa being 7-6 in the league before the Super Bowl kicks off.

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