Two days after the Iowa basketball team received significant good news with Kris Murray announcing that he would be returning for his junior year, the Hawkeyes learned that they would be playing at one of the greatest arenas in basketball history against a blue blood program.

John Rothstein from CBSSports.com reported on Friday afternoon that Iowa will be facing Duke in one of two games in the Jimmy V Classic on December 6th at Madison Square Garden. The other game will pit Texas against fellow Big Ten school, Illinois.

This will be Iowa’s first game against Duke since November 27th, 2001, when the Hawkeyes lost 80-62 to the Blue Devils at the United Center in Chicago. Iowa will head into the game with a 1-7 record against Duke.

This will be a different Duke team this season with the retirement of Mike Krzyzewski at the end of last season. He will be replaced by longtime assistant and former Blue Devil player Jon Scheyer. Duke will also come into the game with one of the top recruiting classes in the country. They will return guard Jeremy Roach, but the rest of the starting five will be made up of incoming recruits, many of whom are five star prospects. That includes three of the top five players in the Rivals ranking for the Class of 2022. They will be adding #1 ranked Dariq Whitehead, #3 Dereck Lively, and #5 ranked Kyle Filipowski. Their recruiting class also includes #20 ranked and five star Mark Mitchell.

There is added meaning to this game given that it is the Jimmy V Classic and the impact that the V Foundation has had on cancer research. Fran McCaffery and his wife have been very active in the Coaches vs. Cancer program and their son, Patrick, fought cancer as a teenager.

In Iowa's last trip to Madison Square Garden, the Hawkeyes on the 2K Classic with victories over Oregon and UCONN. Iowa also went 1-1 in the Big Ten Tournament played at MSG.

As far as the Iowa schedule, the Hawkeyes are expected to be part of the Gavitt Games in early November and they will also play in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge in late November. The Hawkeyes more than likely will be at home against an ACC team and on the road for the Gavitt Games.

Iowa will be hosting Iowa State this year and they play in the Emerald Coast Classic with Clemson, TCU, and Cal in Florida during Thanksgiving week.

The Hawkeyes also face Bethune Cookman, Omaha, North Carolina A&T, Eastern Illinois, and Southeast Missouri State in their non-conference schedule.

The full basketball schedule will be released sometime in August.