Poll Position
The Big Ten will have three ranked teams for at least one more week, as Illinois, Michigan State and Iowa all received enough votes to sit among the nation's 25 best teams, according to the AP and the Coaches in the ESPN poll.

TEAM............AP........Coaches........Pomeroy
Illinois.............1................1.....................1
Michigan St...15..............12....................9
Iowa..............24..............23...................27
Wisconsin....29..............28...................35
Ohio St..........40...........ineligible...........16
Minnesota.....NV..............41..................29

I was initially surprised to see Iowa still in the top 25, mostly because I was still down about the last two games. But looking at them objectively, they do still have the wins against Louisville, Texas, the blowout of Texas Tech, and the victory against Northern Iowa (which I think is more impressive than beating Iowa State). Not bad. And they aren't the only ranked team with three losses either.

Iowa's next game is against Minnesota this Saturday. I still don't know what to make of the Gophers. They started the year with a plethora of new faces, and after losing Adam Boone to injury, most pundits picked them near the bottom of the conference. They don't have any big wins yet, but they've blown out most of their easy opponents en route to their 11-3 record, including their current nine game winning streak. Their losses were to Alabama, Oklahoma, and Florida State. Of the three, the FSU game is the only one they were favored to win.

So, I really don't know what to expect from Minnesota, other than a lot of free throws and turnovers (more on that this week), but given Iowa's play of late, I'm plenty nervous about the possibility of starting the conference 0-4.

In other Hawkeye news -

• Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News talks about Iowa not living up to its previous #14 ranking (and as a Twins fan the Offerman joke was twice as painful).
• Stewart Mandel quotes Seth Davis, both of Sports Illustrated, as saying, "This time next year, Steve Alford will be coaching Indiana." Not exactly news for a writer to make that prediction. Greg Lansing and Brian Jones filled in for Alford on Hawk Talk Monday night, and a caller put them on the spot to discuss how long Steve would be at Iowa. One of them responded that Alford plans to be in Iowa for a long time.

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