Top 5 Basketball vs Top 5 Football

[whatsup13579er]

For the first time in a long time (ever?), both Iowa Basketball and Football have been ranked in the top 5 in the major polls. There is a huge difference in each teams ascent, however. The criticism of the football team was that they played a soft schedule and weren't as good as their top 5 ranking suggested. Whether you agree with that criticism or not, it was one of the major story lines the media used when discussing the highly ranked Hawkeye football team.

The chatter surrounding the basketball team is completely different. The prevailing story line is that the Iowa basketball team is one of the top teams in the nation. They have a legitimate player of the year candidate and potential NBA player in Uthoff. They have another potential NBA player in Jok. They posses senior leadership that many of the blue blood programs (Duke, Kentucky, UCLA) seem to be lacking this season. They have played one of the toughest schedules in the nation and boast possibly the best resume to date.

As much as I loved watching the Football team reel off a school record 12-0 start, I think most fans could see that it wasn't a great team and had flaws that could be exposed. Those flaws don't really exist with the basketball team. There isn't another team in the nation that the basketball team can't beat and they are primed to make a splash in March. This is fun!

 

[hawkeyemike23]

I agree, with the football team I thought eventually having a roster with almost nothing but three star and below recruits was eventually going to catch up to us, and it did. In basketball, I don't feel that way at all. Uthoff is one of the most skilled guys in the country, Jok is playing at an elite level and we have a couple former top 100 recruit, seniors as role players. We've played the toughest schedule of any B10 contender and we've came out of it with nine double digit victories, nothing fluky about it.

 

[yerpHAWK]

Yeah, unfortunately there was a lot of lust lost in the last 2 weeks, however going 12-0 is nearly impossible for any team, so doing it in a power 5 was impressive, even though our big win, and loss got crushed in the bowls. Oklahoma lost to Texas, Bama lost to Ole Miss, Michigan State lost to Nebraska. None of those were schedule busters. It proves it's hard to win every week. A lot of the hate was just because it was Iowa.

However, it is certainly nice that no one can point to the schedule as Iowa has one of the best. Yet, there are still many haters cuz it's Iowa. This time, well either time they had no merit.

 

[herbyhawk]

if Nebraska had won more games the schedule would have been a non issue, NW beat PSU and Stanford but didn't get any credit, Indiana took Michigan to OT but didn't get any credit, Minnesota didn't win 9+ games this year so that was a negative.

not sure what the deal with Pitt is. as they were a quality win for ND but those same people listed it has a poor team for IA to be scheduled. ISU again IA has no control over them being on the schedule.

the BT is way over hyped and the BT West is crap. as for the BT Championship game IA was 6"'s away from being the BT Champion and being in the CFB playoff. and yet some are calling the season a failure that or are acting Like MSU beat IA by 20-30 points vs the final score of 16-13.

IA has the majority of those players back for the 2016 season and yet some talk about IA winning 7 games at most this season,

 

[Birky]

Both teams have given me giant veiny boners.

 

[H4wkfan4life]

The ride is a lot more fun w/o the hate!! that's for sure

 

[uniFIGHTuniFIGHT]

There really isn't a lot of hate for our hoops team this year... they're pretty well respected around the country. People are surprised but when they see the schedule and the results no one's really talking trash about the hoops team.