#5 Iowa Hawkeyes’ well runs dry in 81-69 loss to Indiana

With a chance to keep pace in the Big Ten standings, the #4 Iowa Hawkeyes’ (12-3, 6-2) well ran dry. An 11-minute stretch where Iowa went without a field goal throughout the second half gave the Indiana Hoosiers (9-6, 4-4) the burst they needed to get the 81-69 win.

Garza and Wieskamp led the way with 28 and 16 points (JW had just a free throw in the second half), respectively.

The Hawkeyes were buoyed by great offense from Joe Wieskamp and Luka Garza in the first half, who scored 30 of Iowa’s 37 points as they entered the break with a six-point lead. The Iowa stars couldn’t maintain that pace, as Iowa went 5/23 from deep. Not helping matters was CJ Fredrick sitting on the bench in the second half with a leg injury he sustained in the waning moments of the Northwestern game.

With Fredrick out and Bohannon ice cold, Indiana collapsed their defense around Luka Garza who went 4/11 in the second half for 13 points. He also had 4 turnovers, all in the second half.

With the usual suspects underperforming, Iowa couldn’t find any money elsewhere. Keegan Murray came off the bench and looked good as Fredrick’s replacement in the starting lineup but found himself in the penalty box with three early fouls despite 8 points and 5 rebounds.

The Hoosiers were paced by Trayce Jackson-Davis with 23 points on 9/14 shooting. Three other starters finished in double figures, including Rob Phinisee, who shot 4/7 from deep. IU finished 8/17 from 3.

Too often, Iowa had no answers for Jackson-Davis. Few teams do.

For Fran McCaffery, it was arguably his weirdest game of the season. He went to Iowa’s giant lineup with four forward and Joe Toussaint when they weren’t having any particular trouble getting stops. Tony Perkins got six minutes off the bench and looked a little shaky with quick passes and struggled to corral a couple deflections on defense which could have swung the game.

Toussaint was MIA throughout the second half when Iowa could have used his burst in the pick-and-roll. When he got the call in garbage time, it felt weird because he had such an immediate impact in getting into the lane.

It’s easy to point to this game as an indicator of things to come, and some of it, certainly can be replicated by future opponents. However, sometimes the shots just don’t fall. It was Iowa’s second worst shooting game from deep, with only 4/22 against Gonzaga serving as a more depressing figure. Stat Broadcast tallied Iowa at 14/26 on shots classified as layups.

Ugh.

So they’ll move forward.

A lot of it is fixed by guys making shots and getting healthy. With Iowa’s next scheduled game coming in eight days at Illinois, hopefully the time allows them to get right.

Notes

• Bohannon had two more parking tickets this week than made baskets (0/9). He’s played well enough the last couple weeks not to be concerned by it as anything more than the natural variance of basketball not going his way.
• Iowa went to a feisty, guard-heavy lineup (Perkins, Toussaint, and Ahron Ulis) in garbage time which gave IU some fits. It’s honestly something I would have liked to see a little earlier in the second half, to allow defense and speed to generate offense.
• The best offense was, too often, offensive rebounding as Iowa had 17 second chance points. It’s a nice way to generate baskets here and there but is tricky to sustain as a primary option for offense.
• Archie Miller rode his starting frontcourt through foul trouble as Jackson-Davis & Race Thompson were behind the eight ball throughout the whole game without it ever becoming dire.