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Hawkeye men are in L.A. this week, trying to add to their recent winning ways
Iowa, after two Big Ten home wins last week, play USC at USC Tuesday, and at UCLA somewhere on Friday
Jan. 13, 2025 1:50 pm, Updated: Jan. 13, 2025 2:27 pm
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It’s a strange time to find yourself in Los Angeles, but that’s just where the Iowa men’s basketball team is this week.
As the continuing overriding concern in that city is the containment of catastrophic wildfires, the Hawkeyes’ sole focus as visitors is playing two Big Ten games.
Tuesday at 9:30 (CT), Iowa plays at USC. Friday night, the Hawkeyes are set to face UCLA at the school’s Pauley Pavilion. Or somewhere else.
The top-ranked Bruins’ women’s team has moved its Wednesday game against Penn State from its campus to Long Beach, 35 miles away.
UCLA touches the Palisades fire’s evacuation warning zones. USC’s campus isn’t impacted by current evacuation orders.
The Hawkeyes’ original plan had been to move to a hotel closer to UCLA after the USC game.
“We’ll likely play the game,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said Monday. “Maybe there, maybe somewhere else.”
All that matters to the Hawkeyes for now is USC. A win over the Trojans would give Iowa three wins in a row and a 4-2 Big Ten record.
USC is 2-3 in the conference, 10-6 overall. The Trojans, however, are coming off perhaps the Big Ten’s upset of the season to date, their 82-72 win at then-No. 13 Illinois on Saturday.
“They've been really impressive recently, obviously,” McCaffery said. “Going to Illinois and winning was incredibly impressive performance on a number of different levels, not the least of which was outrebounding (37-34) a team that was number one in the country in rebounding.”
Junior guard Desmond Claude scored 31 points against the Illini. He’s 6-foot-6 and attacks the basket.
Iowa could use a reasonable facsimile of the defensive performance it gave Saturday in its 85-60 home win over Indiana.
Hawkeye guard Drew Thelwell had six steals in that game. He leads the Big Ten in steals per game, and is fourth in the nation in assists-to-turnovers ratio.
The small crowds at Carver-Hawkeye Arena for most of Iowa’s home games this season may have made the atmosphere at USC’s 10,258-seat Galen Center feel familiar for the Hawkeyes. The Trojans’ average home crowd is 4,163.
Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com
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