Iowa Hawkeyes: Black and Gold Morning Brew

Today’s Black and Gold Morning Brew is a little tough to type up. Yesterday was a tough day for the Iowa Hawkeyes as they dropped contests to the Wisconsin Badgers in men’s basketball and the Penn State Nittany Lions in women’s basketball. Let’s take a look at the ladies first.

The Iowa women traveled to Happy Valley riding a two game win streak and looked to close out Big Ten conference play with two more victories. That journey began against the Nittany Lions on Wednesday evening. The Hawkeyes dug themselves a hole almost immediately as they were outscored by nine points in the first quarter.

The second quarter didn’t get much better. They were outscored by nine in that quarter as well. Taking an 18 deficit into the half was probably not what Lisa Bluder had in mind. Iowa would outscore the Lions by five over the course of the final two quarters, but the hole was simply too deep to climb out of. The Hawkeyes dropped the game by a score of 81-68.

Iowa shot nearly 53% from the field, but only 31% from behind the arc and they turned the ball over 22 times compared to Penn State’s 13. Ally Disterhoft paced Iowa with 21 points, while Megan Gustafson threw together a double double performance with 15 points and 11 rebounds. Iowa absolutely must win their final game against the Illinois Fighting Illini and then probably three games in the Big Ten tournament to have a shot at the NCAA’s. First, Iowa needs to take care of business against the bottom feeding Illini on Saturday in Iowa City, IA.

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The Iowa men also experienced a lot of difficulties on Wednesday night. They started right after the women concluded around 8 p.m. and figured to be in for a good ball game considering Wisconsin is one of the hottest teams in the nation at this point. After defeating the Hawkeyes 67-59 on Wednesday night, the Badgers have now won 9 out of 10 with their only loss coming in East Lansing to the Michigan State Spartans.

The Hawkeyes still aren’t getting anything from their bench which has been nonexistent over the course of the last five games. It all started when they didn’t record a point in the loss to Indiana in Bloomington. Iowa’s starting five has the talent to make a deep tournament run, but when the starters go out, the bench has to give Iowa offense otherwise they look destined for an early round exit.

Fans shouldn’t be panicking quite yet, but we are getting there. Iowa still has a shot at the Big Ten title, but they do have three fairly challenging games remaining. They’ll travel to Ohio State on Sunday to take on the Buckeyes, then they welcome Indiana to town looking for revenge, and will conclude things in Ann Arbor against the Michigan Wolverines on March 5th.

Next: Iowa vs. Wisconsin: Game Recap

The Hawkeyes are going to need to figure it out and fast if they have any hopes of heading to Des Moines for the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. Right now, I think they’ll still be there, but those hopes are fading fast with every loss.

That’s all I have for today, Hawk fans, hang in there and have a great day. Iowa will get through this. Stay locked into Dear Old Gold for constant coverage of the Iowa Hawkeyes.

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Iowa Hawkeyes: Black and Gold Morning Brew – 2/25

By Dylan Burn | Feb 25, 2016

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