Hlas: Hawkeyes go from soul-searchers to soul-crushers

LINCOLN, Neb. - The last time Iowa destroyed back-to-back Big Ten men's basketball teams this way was 1944, and it may have crystallized the University of Chicago's decision to get out of major-college sports.

The Hawkeyes beat the Maroons 103-31 in '44 immediately after a 52-40 win at Indiana. That's 84 points of difference, but technically, just one romp.

Seventy-one winters later, we've seen an 81-47 home crushing of Rutgers followed by Sunday's 74-46 dissection of Nebraska in the Cornhuskers' Pinnacle Bank Arena.

You don't like the way Iowa's season is going, just wait a week. Two Sundays ago, the Hawkeyes squashed ranked Maryland and all was right in their world. A week later, they followed a home loss against Minnesota with an ignominious defeat at Northwestern, and the sky in that world had fallen.

Today? The Hawkeyes are again soaring, 8-6 in the Big Ten and poised for their first winning conference record in eight years.

Players-only team meetings are probably like most meetings in the real world's workplaces. They're a lot more talk-ey than do-ey.

However, Iowa's players did gather together on their day off from basketball last Monday to say and hear some things, and it clearly didn't hurt. The message?

'We're almost done with the season,” Hawkeye guard Peter Jok said, 'just go out and play for each other and just have fun.”

That originated with senior forward Aaron White, who said he had 'definitely my worst game of the year (at Northwestern).”

'I was really down. I was extremely upset, not only in the outcome, but how I played.

'I took the whole bus ride (from Evanston to Iowa City), took that night to just be upset and think over what was going on with our team, what we could do to help it.

'We didn't have the right positive outlook on what we were doing. We weren't having fun with what we were doing. The reason we all started playing basketball is because it was really fun.

'The outlook you have to have on life and basketball is it has to be positive. You can't really do anything to affect your past. We lost to Minnesota, we lost to Northwestern, two bad losses. Basically, what I just told them was nothing we say or nothing we can do can change those. All we can do is affect the future for us. That's kind of what we did.”

'Kind of” is kind of a massive understatement. Yes, the opposition has been Rutgers and Nebraska, the east-west Big Ten bookends who are on the margins when it comes to being competitive in conference play.

Nebraska Coach Tim Miles was so incensed with his team's effort Sunday that he didn't allow his players to be interviewed, and he banned them from their basketball complex's locker room for the indefinite future.

But the Hawkeyes had a lot to do with the Huskers' futility. They picked up where they left off Thursday against Rutgers, moving the ball around very well, allowing few easy shots, and looking very confident with their own shot-selection.

Jok has been confident and dynamic with his shooting, Anthony Clemmons has 10 assists in his last 44 minutes, and Gesell had eight assists and his most-involved offensive game in two weeks.

'I thought they were sound and aggressive,” Miles said, and that's a hard-to-beat combination. The trick, of course, is to sustain it.

White's 18 points and 11 rebounds say all that is needed about his day. It was a far cry from his 1-of-12 shooting at Northwestern the previous Sunday and a reminder he needs to play well for Iowa to make postseason waves.

'The next step is no complacency,” said White. 'We haven't done anything. We've got to stay on an even keel, stay with each other, stay enthusiastic, stay positive.

'So far, so good.”

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