(CSTV U-WIRE) IOWA CITY, Iowa – The 14th-ranked Iowa basketball team begins a key five-game stretch Wednesday in Carver-Hawkeye Arena, starting with newly ranked and undefeated North Carolina State in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. The 5-0 Wolfpack entered the new polls at No. 24 after beating Notre Dame in the Wooden Tradition.

The five-game run stretches over 10 days, finishing Dec. 9 at Iowa State, with the Hawkeye Challenge and a date at Northern Iowa sandwiched in between.

“It’s a huge stretch,” senior Greg Brunner said Monday. “Five games in 10 days – plus it’s leading into finals week. I think it’s huge, because we have to make sure we do everything right these next five games, and we have to make sure we do everything right the next three weeks in school.”

The five-game run is the second such stretch the Hawkeyes have had in the young season. Iowa played five games over 12 days, which concluded with a 79-46 win Nov. 26 over Texas-San Antonio.

“They know what they’ve got to do. They’ve got to finish strong,” coach Steve Alford said. “We’ve had a good semester academically, so they must finish strong here during finals week and during that time play five games in that stretch that are a really key five games to set up our break time.”

Both Jeff Horner and Brunner put any questions about their health to rest. Horner suffered a high-left thigh bruise early in Iowa’s win over the Roadrunners, taking a hit on the leg at the 18-minute mark in the first half while fighting through a screen. He played through the injury but came out of the game and went to the locker room with just over five minutes remaining.

“I can still feel it right now, but I just have to work through it, and, hopefully, these next few days, I can see where we’re at,” Horner said. “It’s still pretty sore, but it’ll be fine by Wednesday.”

Brunner is fighting a knock he took on his knee Nov. 22, against No. 2 Texas, but he dismissed it as nothing more than “old age.”

The matchup with the Wolfpack will be Iowa’s first foray into the Big Ten/ACC Challenge since 2002, when Iowa lost at Florida State, 80-67. Alford’s team hasn’t hosted a game in the challenge since an 85-67 win over Georgia Tech in 2000, Iowa’s only win in the event. With Iowa’s game being the last in the event, it could decide who brings home this year’s Commissioner’s Cup.

The ACC has dominated, winning all six years the event has been held and owning a 34-19 lead in the series. The event will go from nine games to 11 with the ACC’s expansion, and there will be no neutral-site games, meaning every Big Ten team will be involved instead of nine in the previous six challenges – a rule that relegated Iowa to the role of spectator the last two seasons. And no games will be played at such sites as the United Center in Chicago, which Iowa did in 2001, when it played No. 1 Duke.

“I think you want to win your game, and then you’re obviously cheering for the rest of the schools in the league, because it helps us,” Alford said. “Whether you like it or not, the Big Ten has taken a hit nationally, with a lot of bad PR, for only one reason. It seems like they’ve taken a hit, because they haven’t won the ACC Challenge.”