Iowa came into the Big Ten Tournament as the league's No. 9 seed, and got shown the door by No. 8 Ohio State on Thursday. The Hawkeyes have 21 wins but are just 1-9 against ranked teams. They're probably in the NCAA Tournament field, but will they have to sweat out Selection Sunday?
CHICAGO — The Iowa Hawkeyes have 21 wins this year. That's a good number, one that's probably good enough to get in the NCAA Tournament field when it is announced on Sunday night.
But there's another number to worry about. After losing to the No. 8 seed Ohio State Buckeyes 72-69 on Thursday in the third round of the Big Ten Tournament, the No. 9 seeded Hawkeyes are now just 1-9 this year against teams ranked in the Associated Press top-25 at the time of the game.
That's horrible. And is it horrible enough for a few selection committee members to think that Iowa is a bit of a fraud? That they can't compete against good teams?
Iowa coach Ben McCollum doesn't think so. He's convinced they've done enough to get in.
But he still has his concerns about this team, that too often settles for just being ''pretty good, and not great.'' That's a problem, too.
"I think we've got a good team,'' McCollum said. "I think sometimes, we get ourselves to accept, I don't know if it's second place, but accept good. I think that's a scary deal. I think we need to try to find great. We're going to get there. We're going to keep fighting and, hopefully, do well in the NCAA Tournament.''
McCollum thinks they settle for their fate too often and they ''start to fall in love with really good.''
"I think there's probably a couple different things there,'' he said. "I think, one, sometimes you can, one, listen to the noise, or you can just walk out on the floor and see the differences in body types. They're a little bit bigger than us, obviously. In every game, it looks that way, and even games where we win or dominate, it's just the nature of how we're built. That doesn't mean you're not good or better than your opponent. So trying to get them to understand that you're not just a win a conference tournament game team, you're not just a make the NCAA Tournament team, you need to be able to win those games.
"I think often, this is why people sit in mediocrity for a long time because they start to fall in love with really good. I probably had that happen to me when I was in, like, my seventh or eighth year. We went to three straight Sweet 16s and lost by one, two points. I don't remember the exact scores. And I always thought we were really good and close. Then I realized that was the biggest issue that we had, was the fact that we were settling for really good. I want our guys to understand that just because you've accomplished some things and everybody wants to compare it to last year, and I just don't do that. Last year is last year. The last coaching staff is the last coaching staff. I have zero interest in comparing the two, and I don't want our guys to either. We've got to compare ourselves to ourselves, and we can be better than that. So kind of summing that up, trying to go from really good to being great is something that is really hard to do, and our kids need to understand really good is not acceptable.''
McCollum knows that success in the NCAA Tournament means more than winning games in the Big Ten. So he's ready to turn the page.
"Again, it's not the end of the world. We're excited about the NCAA Tournament. We're going to fight there too. That's just what we're going to do.''