Hawkeyes try to find a new and improved way to start a Big Ten men’s basketball season

IOWA CITY — Big Ten Conference men’s basketball games in December have not been good to Iowa in recent years.

In league play, the Hawkeyes were 0-2 in December 2021, 0-3 in December 2022, 0-2 in December 2023.

“Tough would be an understatement,” Iowa senior forward Payton Sandfort said Monday. “I’m yet to win a (Big Ten) game in December.”

Another chance comes Tuesday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena (6 p.m.) when the 6-1 Hawkeyes host 6-2 Northwestern in the league-opener for both. The 20-game Big Ten schedule is a long road, but 1-0 would brighten it.

It isn’t that Iowa’s last three seasons were lousy. They comprise half of Iowa’s 6-year streak of 10 or more conference victories. It’s hard to get in title-contention playing catch-up, though.

“It definitely would be a great start,” Sandfort said. “It’s not something we need, but it would definitely feel better going into the January portion of it if we got off to a better start.”

The coming three games are a rise in class, as they say in the horse racing industry. This will be Iowa’s first game against a team from one of the five major conferences, and will be followed with a game at 6-1 Michigan Saturday and a home clash with No. 6 Iowa State next Thursday.

Tomorrow, the biggest question may be if a medical unit accompanies the Hawkeyes to the court. Injuries of the nagging and more-serious varieties have plagued this team in the season’s first month.

Freshman forward Cooper Koch is out indefinitely with an undisclosed injury. Sophomore forward Seydou Traore hurt an ankle in Iowa’s most-recent game, last Tuesday. Hawkeyes Coach Fran McCaffery called it “a bad sprain” Monday, but called Traore’s availability for Northwestern “a game-time decision.”

Starting guard Josh Dix has been playing with a wrist injury, and that may be his status quo the rest of this season. Sandfort also has been plagued with a wrist issue.

Sandfort averages 15.6 points. In his last two games, however, he made just 6 of 25 shots from the field. He is 5 for 31 from 3-point distance over his last four games after going 10-of-23 over his first three.

He said he used the time off for Thanksgiving to rest and “I just figured out how to get it better, and I feel comfortable now. I kind of have all my tools back.”

McCaffery saw Northwestern in person last Thursday when he attended the Wildcats’ game against Butler in Tempe, Ariz. Butler, with Iowa transfer Patrick McCaffery scoring 10 points including two free throws with nine seconds left, edged the Wildcats, 71-69.

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