Iowa suffered a frustrating loss at Michigan State Tuesday night, but its ambitions of finishing in the upper tier of the Big Ten remain very much in play. The Hawkeyes may be sitting at #6 in the conference standing as this piece is being written, but with a four-way logjam of teams with 11-6 conference records tied for second place, they still have plenty of opportunities to move up.
One such chance comes this Saturday when the Hawkeyes (10-7 in Big Ten play) return home to take on the Penn State Nittany Lions, one of the teams currently ranked ahead of them in the conference hierarchy.