ESPNU
After being left out of the ACC-B1G Challenge last year (wisely, it seems safe to say), Pitt returns to the cross-conference melee. They face a surprisingly good Iowa team.
At the time of the dividing of opponents, the expectation was that Iowa was going to be in the lower-half of the Big Ten. Not in the basement, but somewhere in that 6th to 11th range. They still might end up there by the end of the year, but at the moment they are the third highest ranked Big Ten team (behind Michigan and Michigan State).
Iowa is ranked 14th in the AP and 15th in the Coaches. 32d per KenPom — but that comes with the caveat that stats driven rankings are not very good in the first month or so of the college basketball season. The Hawkeyes have a strong national ranking thanks to upsetting Oregon in the 2K Classic and then taking out UConn (who upset Syracuse) to win the non-con tournament.
