Iowa’s basketball team will spend Saturday at a place that has been a virtual house of horrors in recent seasons for the Hawkeyes.

No player wearing an Iowa uniform in the 1 p.m. game at Michigan State will have played in a game at the Breslin Center decided by fewer than 30 points. The Hawkeyes have played there just twice in the last three years, but coach Steve Alford’s teams were beaten by 30 and 32 points in a venue where Iowa hasn’t won since 1993.

The fact that the Hawkeyes limited the Spartans to 36 points in an outing that coach Tom Izzo labeled “embarrassing” in Iowa City in January only adds to the difficult environment Iowa will face this weekend. By the way, Izzo will be attempting to win the 300th game of his career as well.

This sets up as a big game for the Spartans in several ways. With games next week against Wisconsin and Indiana, Michigan State needs Saturday’s game if it hopes to grab some late-season momentum. Costly road losses to Iowa and Penn State have dropped the Spartans below the league-leading pack of Indiana, Purdue and Wisconsin and home games this week against the Nittany Lions and Hawkeyes are being viewed a springboard for the league’s preseason favorite.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 10:11 am and is filed under Hawkeyes Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.