Purdue first up for Hawkeyes in Big Ten play

IOWA CITY - Ready or not, Hawkeyes, here comes the Big Ten.

It's difficult to figure out how truly prepared the Iowa men's basketball team is for these next 18 games. While you should feel better about the last three, all wins, the bottom line is this is an 8-5 team playing in what CollegeRPI.com says is the best conference in the nation by a large margin.

A mere nine Big Ten teams won at least 10 non-conference games and eight have RPIs of 60 or better, including Purdue (10-3), which is first up Wednesday at 8:30 (Big Ten Network) at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. If that's not enough, it's on to No. 11 Wisconsin on Saturday afternoon.

Hang on, folks.

“I think it's important that we come into this game with the right mindset, follow the game plan and play well. I think that's critical,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said Tuesday. “At that point, it'll come down to one team making shots versus the other. We can't have mistake stretches, long periods of missed shots, the inability to stop them when we need a stop one or three (times) in a row. That's what you have to be able to do to win consistently.

“We have played extremely well in parts of every game, even the ones we've lost. We've obviously played more consistently well in the games we've won. That's what we're going to need now. We can't have six or seven-minute stretches where nothing goes right.”

Iowa has gotten better the last couple of weeks, for sure. Melsahn Basabe has finally shown flashes of last year's play, Roy Devyn Marble has been terrific at point guard, Aaron White's been great off the bench and Matt Gatens has been Matt Gatens.

But will that be enough to be competitive in a meat grinder of a league?

“I think we've got a good group of guys that play off each other really well,” Marble said.“We really mesh on and off the court really well as a team. I think we're ready.”

“I see pretty much what everybody sees,” McCaffery said Tuesday. “It's one tough game after another. All we're trying to do is prepare for the next opponent and play well. Then if we play well, continue to get better.”

Purdue's three losses have been by single digits, including by three points to Xavier and two to Butler. There's not a more inspirational story in senior forward Robbie Hummel, who leads the Boilermakers in scoring (17.5) and rebounding (5.9).

Hummel missed the previous two seasons with separate ACL knee injuries.

“Anybody can have an injury. Happens all the time,” McCaffery said. “But when you work so hard to come back, then it happens again, that's the guy that you really feel for. I have been impressed with how he has approached coming back a second time, the role he is in. He's still the guy. That's not easy to do when you're coming off two knee surgeries.”