Busting Brackets
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Big Ten Basketball: Ranking each team’s league schedule for 2021-22 season

By Trevor Sinodhinos

Feb 13, 2021; East Lansing, Michigan, USA; Michigan State Spartans head coach Tom Izzo during the first half against the Iowa Hawkeyes at Jack Breslin Student Events Center. Mandatory Credit: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 13, 2021; East Lansing, Michigan, USA; Michigan State Spartans head coach Tom Izzo during the first half against the Iowa Hawkeyes at Jack Breslin Student Events Center. Mandatory Credit: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports /
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Iowa Basketball
Big Ten Basketball Joe Toussaint Iowa Hawkeyes (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images) /

12. Iowa Hawkeyes

Home & Away – Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Penn State, Purdue
Home Only – Indiana, Michigan State, Northwestern
Away Only – Ohio State, Rutgers, Wisconsin

Although expected, it was still bad news when Joe Wieskamp and Luka Garza decided to go play in the NBA. While this schedule was always a possibility, it was not expected, but now that it is a reality, it is also bad news. The ones who will suffer the most will not be the players on the court, but for anybody who watches the televised games as they will be constantly inundated with the rhetoric of how badly the Hawkeyes miss 2020-21 Player of the Year Luka Garza.

The reason for the constant reminder will be the result of playing Kofi Cockburn, Hunter Dickinson, Trevion Williams and Qudus Wahab as the Hawkeyes play Illinois, Michigan, Purdue, and Maryland twice each. For a team that will be starting 6’8, 215-pound Keegan Murray at center – thanks to the transfer of Jack Nunge- these are eight losses you can write down in ink.

Coach McCaffery has at most six guys who will contribute while on the court, which limits his creativity if he chooses to play Filip Rebraca at center. Rebraca can take the bigger defenders off the dribble, but as a non-threat from beyond the arc, defenders can spare some space.

The teams in which they will be competitive against are; Rutgers and Wisconsin, but as luck would have hit they hit the road to play both of them. The teams they play only at home are Ohio State and Michigan State – which are losses wherever played, and Northwestern who they should beat regardless.

The only saving grace of this schedule that prevented them from being higher on the ‘loser list’ is they will face arguably the three teams who are the least talented in the conference, and they do so twice when they play Minnesota, Penn State, and Nebraska.

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