Michigan 84, Iowa 79: unhappy endings

Michigan’s Moussa Diabate had a career high 28 points on 12-15 shooting, surging the Maize and Blue to a 84-79 win in an effort that saw his team shoot 50 percent from the floor.

We had ourselves a seesaw affair throughout, with eight lead changes in the first frame. Iowa scrambled to an early 10-6 lead after a Jordan Bohannon 3, but Michigan went on an 11-0 run to pull ahead 18-14.

A Keegan Murray tre stopped the bleeding there, kicking off a short scoring spurt of seven unanswered for Iowa.

Diabate answered for Michigan, and we once again saw Filip Rebraca go to the locker room after landing on his ankle weird—he would eventually return, which is good news because Josh Ogundele just isn’t there yet. Although he did draw a good foul on Hunter Dickinson. Brits always make the best actors.

ANYWAY, six straight points from Bohannon, Ahron Ulis, and Payton Sandfort gave Iowa a 2-point lead with just over three minutes to go in the frame. Rebraca returned to deke out Dickinson, causing Juwan Howard to commit one of the dumbest technical fouls I’ve ever seen—with just 50 seconds left in the half nonetheless.

Naturally, Bohannon made his shots, then had a bad whiff on a three attempt. After Kobe Bufkin made some free throws after a pointless review, Connor McCaffery full-courted it to Keegan with under 3 ticks on the clock for this electric exchange.

Pat McCaffery didn’t return to the court or bench at half, with his brother starting in his place. He’d eventually return, but not until after Juwan Howard committed yet another technical foul, this one even more bizarre.

They called it a Class B Tech, which I’d never heard of before. Bohannon attempted just one free throw, made it, and Howard was allowed to stay on the sideline for the remainder of the game.

Iowa and Michigan traded buckets for around the next five minutes, but the Wolverines really started to pull away after 7 straight points created a 55-50 lead.

Kris Murray knocked down a 3 to temporarily stop the bleeding, but the combo of Diabate and Dickinson down low gave Iowa ulcers as Michigan scored 46 points in the paint.

Keegan suffered through some serious cramping that made him miss about five minutes of the second half, sticking a dagger into Iowa’s heart. He returned with about 2 minutes left while Iowa was down 7, executed a block, and saw Pat take it coast-to-coast to make it a 3 point game with 80 seconds left.

Caleb Houstan made two free throws after Joe Toussaint fumbled a potential Dickinson turnover out of bounds.

Keegan had another under the hoop to keep it within 3. He then had a block on the other end via Devante Jones. Iowa was correctly given the ball with 27 seconds left in the game.

Bohannon dished to Keegan who had a good look. He missed. Michigan rebound, foul, made free throw, Ulis coast-to-coast, more fouls, ballgame.

The rest

• Iowa’s 13-20 effort from the free throw line was a killer, while Michigan knocked in 18-23.
• Honestly, would’ve liked to see more attempts from Bohannon. He was just 2-5, including a miss at the very end where he was trying to draw a foul.
• Meanwhile, Sandfort was 0-4 and all of his takes were... optimistic.
• I counted four first-half travel calls from Michigan, but don’t think they committed one in the second.
• Overall, each team committed 11 turnovers. Michigan scored 18 off those, while Iowa came away with just 9.