John Sears has ZERO credibility as a sports reporter in my opinion. He is a devout Hawk fan and that's fine but he can not be impartial in his reporting. Just as I could never be if I were in his shoes.
I realize it will all work itself out in March BUT here goes.....
The B1G is a watered down conference in football and basketball. Any league with an unbalanced schedule is. Nothing compares to the Big 12. But for some reason national pundits just have this unabashed love for the B1G. Has Iowa played well lately? Hell yes. Has Iowa got some timely breaks due to injuries and star players being out? Hell yes. Beat Wichita State without Van Vleet. Beat Mich St without Valentine and with a Valentine that was clearly not himself after the return from surgery. Hold off Michigan with Levert not playing. But somehow these are great wins and they solidify Iowa as a top 10 team. Beating Sparty without Valentine = ISU beating Oklahoma without Hield or KU without Ellis. I have a feeling if Hield happened to get hurt in warmups and ISU won the national media would devalue our win. Blows my mind that Iowa is getting so much credit for beating good teams that are not at full strength.
The last good team Iowa played at full strength was ISU and they lost. But even that fact gets lost in the national narrative. So many pundits are essentially giving Iowa credit for winning at ISU even though they did not because of the collapse that took place. Make no mistakes, Iowa had a lot to do with that collapse - but so did ISU.
Win tonight - win Saturday - win next Monday vs KU (and if that happens you are probably looking at 2 Big Monday takedowns of the #1 team in the country - or at worst 2 takedowns of top 3 teams) and we are right back up the polls. Again, I know the polls don't matter but I just hate the fawning over Iowa and the B1G. Hell, ISU is 2-0 against the B1G this year....
Rant over.