Iowa returns to Big Ten action at home this evening against Northwestern. The Hawks will be without head coach Fran McCaffery who is serving a one game suspension. Assistant coach Kirk Spearaw will direct the Hawkeyes. He was a long time head coach at Central Florida.

McCaffery says Spearaw is respected by the players and has the most experience of being a head coach. “Kirk has established himself on a national level of being very talented in this profession, and I  feel very confident he’ll do a good job Thursday,” McCaffery says.

McCaffery says the Wildcats are playing a more uptempo style under first year coach Chris Collins and are playing the way you’d expect a Collins team to play.

Northwestern is 7-8 overall and 0-2 in the Big Ten. “I did see a lot of progress from our first game to our second game, they guys are fighting, our attitude is good. I feel like we are executing, we are just having a hard time of  putting the ball in the basket right now,” Collins says.

It is an 8:05 tip off in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.