Hawkeye Basketball Tips Off

Another year of Iowa Hawkeye basketball started on Friday.  This season starting hasn't been talked about much, because of Iowa's football team starting 10-0 and being ranked as the number five team in the nation.
But, the Iowa basketball team is off to a fast start, at 2-0.  Of course, they haven't played anybody. But, that's all right, because it is only the first weekend, and it's a good time to get it sorted out with a young team like the Hawkeyes. On Friday, the Hawkeyes tipped off against a good one-bid league team, the Big South's Gardner-Webb Runnin' Bulldogs.  The Hawkeyes won that game 76-59.  Today's game was not that close.  The Hawkeyes played the Coppin State Eagles from the Mid Eastern Athletic Conference, another one-bid league.  The Hawkeyes started on a 22-2 run, and they never looked back.  Iowa was ahead 52-22 at halftime, and they won 103 to 68.  It was a fast paced game that took less than an hour and forty-five minutes to complete.
But, it gets tougher on Thursday, as the Hawkeyes will head up to Milwaukee to face off against the Marquette Golden Eagles.  The Eagles are coming off of a very tough season after their coach, Buzz Williams left to coach at Virginia Tech. They are in full rebuild mode, but have a great recruiting class that they got for the 2015 class that will present a tough challenge for the Hawkeyes. But, with young talent comes growing pains, as the Golden Eagles suffered a home loss to the Belmont Bruins from the Ohio Valley Conference 83-80.  This is the first year of the Gavitt Tip Off Games, games that will be played in the non-conference portion of the schedule between a Big Ten and a Big East team.  It is named to remember and honor former Providence athletic director and the first ever commissioner of the Big East Conference, Dale Gavitt.
Then, with their first two games of the season being the pregames, the Hawkeyes will fly down to Orlando to play in the Advocare Invitational against Dayton.  They will then play against either Notre Dame or Monmouth.  They could also meet up against Wichita State, a top 25 ranked team.
They also will play at top 10 in-state rival Iowa State.
At least Iowa got through without getting upset in a crazy opening weekend, such as Wisconsin getting beat by Western Illinois, Illinois by North Florida, and former Iowa coach's Steve Alford UCLA getting beat by Monmouth.  The road to March is just starting.