Iowa’s bizarre Big Ten schedule includes the Hawkeyes’ first bye this week, giving the team a chance to heal some injuries as it works toward Sunday’s 11 a.m. game at Purdue.

That’s not all bad and based on what transpired in Sunday’s loss at Michigan, the Hawkeyes can definitely use the practice time.

Still, coach Todd Lickliter wouldn’t mind having a nonconference game on the schedule this week.

“I wouldn’t mind bringing a team into Carver this week. It seems like we cram so many games in November and December into a short period of time. It wouldn’t be bad to have one of those games now if we could have found an opponent to make it work,” Lickliter said. “I think we need to play.”

Lickliter pointed to Friday’s Ohio State-Houston Baptist game as an example of a nonconference game that allowed the Buckeyes to maintain a routine.

That won’t necessarily be easy for Iowa, which plays three games next week and has two other weeks later in the season when it will play three games as well.

Do the math. The Hawkeyes will play half of their Big Ten schedule during three calendar weeks and spread the remaining nine games out over six weeks.

Something doesn’t add up.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 4:59 pm 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.