Iowa Basketball: Hawkeyes Falter, Lose to Penn State

The Iowa Basketball team suffered its first bad loss of the season Wednesday night, falling 79-75 to the Penn State Nittany Lions inside the Bryce Jordan Center.

Ah, life on the road in the Big Ten. Just when you think you have it figured out, things can get crazy. Penn State was coming off a blowout loss at Nebraska and Iowa was coming off a nail-biting victory against 0-13 Minnesota. It would seem to favor the Hawkeyes, right? Well, not exactly.

It looked like Iowa was going to run away with this one early as the Hawkeyes jumped out to a 10-2 lead and Penn State was turning the ball over and missing everything it attempted. However, Shep Garner happened. Garner, who was 0-16 in his past four games from three-point range, drained four in the first half and turned the tide of the game. Penn State caught fire and took a 38-31 lead into the half.

This game was similar to the Minnesota game, except this time Iowa was the team that was losing. Iowa would consistently pull to within one possession but could not hit the big shot, as Penn State held the lead for the entire second half.

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Bench play and free throw shooting were the difference in this game. A disturbing trend is the lack of bench production for Iowa. Nicholas Baer was terrific in the first half, scoring 6 points and grabbing 2 offensive boards, but did nothing in the second half. Dom Uhl had four points but was not a huge factor. For Penn State, both Donovon Jack and Isaiah Washington had career nights. Jack, a senior, had a career-high 19 points in 22 minutes on 8-9 shooting, and made numerous key plays down the stretch for Penn State.

Now on to free-throw shooting. This has been an issue for Iowa for a few years now, but once again, it bit the Hawkeyes. On its face, the numbers don’t appear too bad as Iowa went 25-35 (71.4%) at the line, but the Hawkeyes missed a bunch down the stretch when they had opportunities to close the gap. Meanwhile Penn State was 17-22 at the line, but went 14-16 in the final 90 seconds of the game, icing the game.

Peter Jok was outstanding for Iowa, scoring 28 points, hitting two threes late in the game to make the game interesting, but it was an all around disappointing performance for the Hawkeyes, who get a much needed week off before returning to Carver-Hawkeye Arena next Wednesday, February 24th to take on the red-hot Wisconsin Badgers.

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It is often difficult in the immediate aftermath to think clearly, but in the end, this is only one loss for the Hawkeyes. This team is comfortably in the NCAA Tournament, and while it is a bad loss and Iowa no longer controls it own destiny in the Big Ten regular season title race, the only affect this has for Iowa in the long run is potential NCAA Tournament seeding.

Take a deep breath with me, Hawkeye fans. It is going to be okay.

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Iowa Basketball: Hawkeyes Can’t Execute in Loss at Penn State

By Kenny Levine | Feb 17, 2016

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