Hlas column: Hawkeyes bounce back up, grow up

IOWA CITY -- Clear, unassailable progress.

You get your brains beat in two games in a row and turn around and give the 40-minute effort the Iowa men's basketball team gave Saturday afternoon, you're going in the right direction.

The Hawkeyes' 75-59 victory over 13th-ranked Michigan in Carver-Hawkeye Arena was a thing of beauty for a basketball coach and his team's fans. Iowa was dialed in from the opening tip to the final horn, and that can make up for a lot of hiccups along the way. Not that the Hawkeyes had many of those this day.

After getting torched by the Big Ten's two best teams, Ohio State and Michigan State, the Hawkeyes could easily have curled into the fetal position. Instead, they did some growing up.

“I knew we were going to get great effort today,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said.

“They didn't play well up there (in Wednesday's 95-61 loss at Michigan State). They didn't. You didn't have to tell them. They know. And they didn't have a whole lot to say the last couple of days, but they practiced well.”

It was more than just trying hard, though. It was thorough defense, embodied by Matt Gatens' lockdown on Wolverine ace guard Tim Hardaway Jr. It was eight steals to Michigan's two. It was assists on 18 of Iowa's 25 baskets. It was committing a measly eight turnovers.

This was a good team the Hawkeyes beat, and they did so by taking the game to the Wolverines from start to finish. This contest didn't have the buildup of the previous Saturday's home game against Ohio State, but Iowa got the crowd of 12,366 engaged the old-fashioned way. By earning their roars.

“They were great,” Michigan Coach John Beilein said. “We didn't play one of our better games, and Iowa was the reason for that.”

The roll call of Hawkeyes who did winning things is a long one. Gatens couldn't have been asked to do more than what he did, which was play 38 minutes of tough, smart, skillful ball at both ends of the court. But the senior had something that's often been lacking in his first three seasons, which was a lot of help.

Sophomore Devyn Marble gets better as this season progresses. He claimed no extra motivation playing against his home state team, but he was better than any guard Michigan had Saturday, including Hardaway Jr., who tortured the Hawkeyes with 30 points in Michigan's overtime win here 11 months ago.

Marble wasn't a point guard when he got here in the fall of 2010. He's gotten there, and quickly.

“I knew I had it in me all the time,” Marble said.

“He's tremendous,” Beilein said. “He's really good. I mean, really, really good. His best is yet to come. He just turned 19 (last September). He's going to be a great Big Ten player.”

What didn't Marble do against the Wolverines?

“Coach McCaffery always wants me to mix it up,” said Marble. “Rebound, defend, get some steals, score, get other guys open. So that's what I've been trying to do.”

Iowa is one-third of the way through its 18-game Big Ten schedule and is 3-3. The Hawkeyes haven't been at the .500 mark in league play this deep into a season since 2007.

“I'm not satisfied with that,” Marble said, “but I think it's a positive sign.”

Given that this first 6-game stretch appears to tougher than the next two, 3-3 is positive, all right.

Gatens was terrific, Marble was terrific, the Hawkeyes were terrific. It was just one game, and the next one (at Purdue) figures to be rugged. But this team may not be bringing many more pocket knives to gunfights the way they did against Ohio State and Michigan State.

“We are an unselfish group and put winning ahead of any personal achievement,” McCaffery said, “and I think that's the kind of character we have in that locker room.”

That's three real good league wins by mid-January. You would have taken that a few weeks ago.