The Hawkeyes had another opportunity to secure a signature win in front of a packed house, but their efforts against Purdue flopped.
New coach. Same result.
That was probably a reaction from some of the 15,000 disappointed Iowa basketball fans as they quietly filed through the black, crash bar-laden doors of Carver-Hawkeye Arena and into the parking lot.
This could've been a day of celebration, but instead they were back to square one, as their Hawkeyes fell flat after the opening tip and lost in embarrassing fashion to No. 13 Purdue, 78-57.
Iowa fans didn't come into this game necessarily expecting a win, especially after Wednesday's loss to Big Ten bottom-feeder Maryland, but the expectation was that the Hawkeyes would come out firing in front of a packed house in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
That's not a sentence that's been said much over the last few years. In fact, Saturday's game marked the first capacity crowd inside CHA since 2023-24. Fran McCaffery's final season saw record-low attendance figures, but the crowds have slowly come back to Carver in Ben McCollum's first season as the new Head Hawk.
There's no question the excitement around Iowa men's basketball is beginning to ramp up again. but with excitement comes increasingly lofty expectations from Hawkeye fans.
Iowa's 18-5 start (which included a six-game winning streak) had some dreaming of a potential NCAA tournament run in March, a consistent obstacle for the program.
The Hawkeyes can still reach those goals in 2026, but one way to proving it is winning marquee games at home. These sellouts don't happen very often (sometimes once a season), and that's because Iowa's fanbase is very fair-weather.
If the Hawkeyes are winning, the people will show up in drives. If they don't, a Tuesday night Big Ten game turns into dress like a seat day at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Winning these big home games was a problem for McCaffery, and once he stopped winning completely, the crowds were gone.
Excitement remains high in McCollum's first year, but Iowa desperately needs a signature win to boost it. Purdue is a very good basketball team, but if your memory holds, you remember the Hawkeyes nearly beat the Boilermakers in West Lafayette one month ago.
Whatever Iowa did right in that game completely went up in flames on Saturday. The crowd was thirsty for something exciting to happen, but the Hawks couldn't deliver it to them.
The Boilermakers were simply on another stratosphere and looked every bit the part of a preseason No. 1 team. Iowa's miscues helped Purdue build a sizable first half edge, but the Hawkeyes were lost from the start.
The 21-point final score probably isn't even indicative of how lopsided this game actually was, as Iowa scored some points in garbage time.
A blowout loss is something no one wants to have on their resume, but this type of loss has been a problem for the Hawkeyes over the years. McCaffery's teams always had chances to win big-time home games during his tenure, but always fell flat on their face.
McCollum's maiden Iowa team has had two cracks at beating a ranked team inside Carver-Hawkeye - Illinois on Jan. 11 and Saturday's Purdue game. The 75-69 loss to Illinois doesn't reveal many similarities at first glance, but it also featured a sluggish start.
Iowa probably doesn't win the Purdue game even with a good start, but they likely beat the Fighting Illini if they avoid the dreaded slow start. Either way, the result was the same - big home game, disappointing loss.
The 2026 Hawkeyes still have two marquee home contests left on their schedule - Nebraska on Feb. 17 and Michigan on March 5 (Senior Night). Winning both is a tall order, but Iowa has to win one of those games to not only beef up its NCAA tournament resume, but give its fanbase a signature win.
This shouldn't be case for a first-year coach trying to rebuild a program, but here's the honest truth - Iowa won't fully earn the respect of its starving fanbase unless it wins a marquee game. That's the only way Carver-Hawkeye Arena will be consistently filled.
Can the Hawkeyes earn that elusive signature win against Nebraska on Tuesday? We'll soon find out.