Reality check for Hawkeye men against Creighton

DES MOINES - Iowa's men's basketball team got smacked with a backfist of unkind reality Sunday afternoon. The question for the Hawkeyes moving forward is how do they respond?

Creighton (4-0) outplayed Iowa (3-1) in every facet and at every end in an 82-59 win at Wells Fargo Arena in a neutral-site game. The final score didn't represent Creighton's true dominance as much as it showed Iowa's inability to guard both the post and the perimeter and miss open shots with regularity.

It was an alarming wake-up call for a team that coasted by a 31-point average margin of victory in its first three games. With in-state rivalries, an ACC-Big Ten match-up and a grinding 18-game Big Ten schedule on the horizon, sophomore forward Melsahn Basabe said the team needs to get better - fast.

“It puts us back in reality,” Basabe said. “We're not where we need to be. Guys look at themselves and need to step it up because those are the real games. Anybody can beat them bums and teams of lower caliber. We're a Big Ten team. We're supposed to beat them by 40-50 points.”

Go to http://thegazette.com/2011/11/20/reality-check-for-iowa/ for the rest of the story