Big Ten Basketball: Each team’s worst performance of the last decade

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IOWA CITY, IA – FEBRUARY 3: Guard Peter Jok #14 of the Iowa Hawkeyes drives between guard Shep Garner #33 and forward Donovan Jack #5 of the Penn State Nittany Lions, in the first half on February 3, 2016 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, in Iowa City, Iowa. (Photo by Matthew Holst/Getty Images) /

Iowa

February 17, 2016 (at Penn State 79, Iowa 75) (GS: 52)

The Iowa Hawkeyes are one of those basketball programs that seems to fluctuate between being good and being inconsequential. Things were alright under Steve Alford before falling apart under Todd Lickliter. Current coach Fran McCaffery has had his ups and downs, making just three NCAA Tournament appearances in his eight seasons, but so it goes at Iowa. There are two really nasty games that stand out, so we’ll briefly look at the one that wasn’t quite as bad.

Iowa dropped a home game to Campbell back in November 2011 by the score of 77-61. Campbell center Eric Griffin dominated the game and Iowa couldn’t stop him, allowing 23 points and 13 rebounds. It was a bad loss in a less than close game to a Big South team. While it’s pretty bad, Penn State was far worse.

It’s not just that Penn State was a mediocre team (eventually finishing the year at 16-16) and it’s not just that Iowa lost; it’s the circumstances under which the Hawkeyes dropped this unacceptable game. This wasn’t your average Iowa team, this was the #4 team in the country, a group that had already swept both Michigan State and Purdue and had wins over teams like Michigan, Wichita State and Florida State. Despite scoring the game’s first 8 points and leading for the first 15 minutes of the game, Iowa could not put Penn State away and never even reclaimed the lead after halftime. Peter Jok put up 28 points and Jarrod Uthoff added 19 but this team just couldn’t contain a weak Penn State squad.

The #4 ranking, thoughts of a great seed; it was all flushed away with one unexpected loss. A four-game losing streak followed and 7-seeded Iowa bowed out gracefully to eventual champion Villanova in the second round. Since then, two less than successful seasons have followed for the Hawkeyes. At the very least, they’ve avoided the embarrassment of losing to a 14-seed again (yes I had to mention Northwestern State), but who knows what’s in store for this program in the future.

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