OK, I'm in.

I've been reserving judgment on this Iowa Hawkeye basketball team because, frankly, I'm not quite sure what to make of them. Steve Alford, to this point, just hasn't been the next great Hawkeye coach that we Iowa fans all thought he would become - and he's had plenty of time to make a serious start, this is his seventh season. Over the course of his time in Iowa City, he's had some teams that were brilliant for stretches of time, but they always managed to quietly fade away when it came down to it. They don't make it to the dance as a rule, like they used to. They haven't made much noise in the dance for far too long. And so on.

So I've been watching with a jaded eye, just waiting for the fade. They beat #7 Kentucky, gave #2 Texas a serious run for their money for about 38 minutes, and beat #21 N.C. State in a stretch of about 10 days back in November, and I was like "yeah, whatever." Then they lost back-to-back games at Northern Iowa and Iowa State (both pretty good teams, but still) in mid-December and I thought "uh-huh! see?!"

I think I was wrong about this team. Tonight in Iowa City they took down their fifth ranked team in a row, the Michigan State Spartans. The win gave them a full-game lead (and the inside track) in the Big Ten, a conference they haven't won outright since 1970. It was their 16th straight home victory (including a 15-point stomping of then #6 and 15-0 Illinois, how sweet that was), setting a school record. They play killer defense and have a chemistry that's been lacking in Iowa basketball for quite a while.

They will, of course, promptly reward my declaration of belief with a couple of losses in their last four games, a second- or third-place finish in the conference in the regular season, and an early exit from the Big Ten tournament. Because this is what my teams do.

In other news, Duke still kicks ass.