Iowa Basketball: Hawkeyes Come Up Short on Senior Night

The Iowa Basketball team came up just short on Senior Night against the Indiana Hoosiers. They lost the game by a score of 81-78.

Oh man guys.

What an up and down, roller coaster of a game. If you enjoy having your emotions toyed with, this was your kind of game. The Iowa Hawkeyes were on their home court and it was senior night for the class that turned this Iowa program around. The first half was about as weird as it gets. Iowa senior point guard, Mike Gesell, got into some early foul trouble and that forced Fran McCaffery’s hand.

Fran turned to freshman point guard, Christian Williams. Coming into the game, Williams had scored a grand total of 13 points during his freshman campaign. Well, he gave the Hawkeyes eight points in the first half of play, along with some great hustle. You couldn’t ask for more from the kid.

The Hooisers held a lead for a majority of the half, and took a six point lead into the locker room. They did most of their damage from behind the arc in the half, shooting 8-of-11 from three and 18-of-30 from the field in general. Iowa wasn’t playing great defense, but the Hoosiers just could not miss.

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When the second half started, the Hoosiers made several attempts at pulling away. They opened the lead up to 10 points in the early stages of the second half, but Peter Jok hit a three pointer to cut the lead to seven. IU had it out to 14 points at 60-46 and things looked like they were about to get ugly for the Hawkeyes. But hold on just a minute here.

A Jarrod Uthoff layup with just under nine minutes left in the game cut it to seven points, and Iowa had a pulse. The Hawkeyes went on an 11-0 run from the 9:50 mark to the 6:30 mark and the game was tied at 70. Hawkeye fans were stunned. This team looked like they were done, and IU figured to coast to a victory. But we were all wrong.

Nicholas Baer hit two huge threes about a minute apart to lead the Hawkeyes back to even. You really can’t question Iowa’s bench play in this game. With 4:36 left in the game, Peter Jok made a shot to give Iowa a 74-72 lead. Iowa got one free throw from Adam Woodbury about 30 seconds later after an IU bucket to give Iowa a one point lead with four minutes remaining. As we’ve seen in the past, Iowa went the next four minutes without scoring, while IU scored seven points. It wasn’t until Anthony Clemmons hit a three with seven ticks remaining that Iowa got a bucket.

Somehow, Iowa was still in it. After they forced a turnover with six seconds left, they had a shot to tie the game. Iowa drew up a play that I believe was designed for Jarrod Uthoff, but Clemmons ended up taking and air-balling the three point attempt. Woodbury grabbed the offensive rebound and called a timeout to give Iowa one more shot. Fran drew up a good play for Jok, and he was wide open, but it fell just short of going in and the Hoosiers escaped, 81-78.

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Uthoff led the Hawkeyes with 18 points on 5-of-17 shooting from the field. Clemmons chipped in 14 points of 5-of-15 shooting. Iowa’s bench was great in this one, they scored 27 points and were led by Ahmad Wagner, who had 11 points and 9 rebounds.

The Hawkeyes continue to slide as they’ve now lost four straight games, including five out of six. They round out the regular season on Saturday when they travel to Ann Arbor to take on the Michigan Wolverines.

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Iowa Basketball: Hawkeyes Come up Short on Senior Night

By Dylan Burn | Mar 1, 2016

The Iowa Basketball team came up just short on Senior Night against the Indiana Hoosiers. They lost the game by a score of 81-78.

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