In need of a road win, Hawkeyes men’s basketball team is at Ohio State tonight

Sunday was a day of saluting football in Columbus, Ohio.

A celebration was held at Ohio Stadium for Ohio State’s freshly minted national championship football team. Some fans waited outside the gates for four hours before doors opened.

Today, it’s back to more-mundane sports life on the OSU campus. Their men’s basketball team, 3-5 in the Big Ten, hosts Iowa at Value City Arena.

The Hawkeyes flew into Columbus on Sunday afternoon, after the football event was done. Not that it was of any concern to them, anyhow, and traffic from the stadium was probably still dissipating. These trips are about one thing only, the task at hand. It’s a true bubble.

How does a team spend its 24 hours or more in a city before a game?

“We're practicing here (In Iowa City) today,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said Sunday morning. “So we'll get there. We'll go to the hotel. We'll have a meeting. We'll go to dinner. We'll have another meeting, and go to bed.

“Get up and have breakfast. Have a meeting. Go to shootaround (at the arena), come back after shootaround, have a meeting, have the pregame meal, go to the game, come home.”

The Hawkeyes’ most recent game — a 76-75 home win over Penn State on Friday — was less than 48 hours before they flew to Ohio on Sunday afternoon. That left little time to prepare for a Buckeyes team they haven’t faced this season, but enough.

“We pretty much occupy their time,” McCaffery said. “They're studying their scouting report, because they're going to be asked questions about it so they're going to have to know it.

“Our guys pretty much just stay locked into when the meetings are, when we eat. … There is not a lot of down time. You’re in and out of the city.”

At 4-5 in the Big Ten with one home loss, the Hawkeyes will need at least a couple of road wins for a winning Big Ten season. They obviously don’t come easily.

Entering Sunday’s games, eight of the 18 Big Ten teams were unbeaten at home or had lost just once. The Buckeyes, however, have lost all three of their 2025 home games.

Ohio State junior guard Bruce Thornton may not have the star power in Columbus of Buckeye football stars like quarterback Will Howard, defensive end Jack Sawyer and wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, but he’s a good one. Thornton averages team-highs of 17.1 points and 4.3 assists.

“Thornton is a really special player,” McCaffery said. “I’ve been impressed with him from the minute he came into this league. He is the true definition of a gamer.”

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