Hawkeye cagers get highest ranking since 2001-02

We'll see if Iowa's foray into the Top 10 of the men's college basketball rankings works out better than its last couple of visits.

The Hawkeyes are No. 9 in both the coaches' and Associated Press polls.

The Top 10 has been a foreign place to Hawkeye hoops for most of this millennium. Iowa got to No. 10 in the Associated Press poll almost exactly two years ago when it was No. 10. It promptly lost at Michigan, and was 5-10 after the Top 10 rank.

The Hawkeyes haven't been ranked higher than they currently are since they were No. 7 in the Nov. 27, 2001 AP poll. The tumble was hard that season, too, as Iowa went on to a 19-16 season and first-round NIT exit.

It's the final results that count, of course. The last time Iowa was in AP's final Top 10 of the season was all the way back in 1987, when it was sixth.

Iowa hasn't finished in a final AP Top 25 since the 2005-06 season, when it was 15th after its first-round NCAA tourney defeat to Northwestern State.

But this is a different year, a different team, a different everything. The Hawkeyes' next game is Thursday at Rutgers. Surely, no disaster there awaits. The Scarlet Knights are 0-5 in the Big Ten and have lost their last four games by 22 points or more.