Junior Senior - Move Your Feet from Manolis_G on Vimeo.
Just when you think you have this team figured out, they go and do something like that. Wow. My confidence level heading into this game was low. Very, very low. Coming off back-to-back road losses, the latter a crushing near-miss against Penn State, and facing a team that had absolutely had its way with Iowa earlier this season? Let's just say that didn't seem like a recipe for victory to me. And no Bryce Cartwright (high ankle sprain)? No Eric May (back strain)? No problem, as it turned out.
All we needed was Matt Gatens to play like it was the second half of the Penn State game again (he scored a career-high 30 points on 10/18 shooting, including 7/10 from 3-point land), Melsahn Basabe to play like it was 2010-2011 again (he had 13 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 blocks and his energy in the first half was key to Iowa building a lead in the first half), and the entire team to defend like, well, I don't know when. But a team that shredded Iowa for 103 points a month ago was held to 66 points on 38% shooting. Iowa also forced 14 turnovers and even outrebounded Indiana (37-33). It was the best defensive performance from Iowa in a long, long time.
At some point maybe wins over ranked opponents will be so commonplace that we won't feel the need to bust out "Move Your Feet" to celebrate them. But we're not there yet and after two excruciating losses, a win like this felt extraordinary. And so, we celebrate. Go Hawks.