Recap: Iowa Basketball Collapses In Second Half Against Michigan State

Michigan State handed Iowa basketball their second straight loss on Saturday night, 77-66.

In a game featuring many of the Big Ten’s best freshmen, Michigan State’s freshmen simply out-played Iowa basketball‘s in the Hawkeyes 77-66 loss.

Miles Bridges, Nick Ward, Joshua Langford and Cassius Winston combined for 53 points, 23 rebounds, 12 assists and five blocks compared to Tyler Cook, Cordell Pemsl, Jordan Bohannon, Isaiah Moss and Ryan Kriener recording 29 points, 16 rebounds, one assist and two blocks.

Michigan State’s hostile environment got to a young Iowa team early in their loss. The game started with sloppy play on both ends and Peter Jok and Jordan Bohannon seemingly falling for the student section’s fake shot clock countdown.

Despite the rough start in the first half, Michigan State (15-10, 7-5 B10) gave Iowa (14-12, 6-7 B10) an opportunity to pull away by turning the ball over 12 times and only having center Nick Ward for four minutes because of foul trouble. The Hawkeyes didn’t take advantage and only led 32-31 heading into the half.

Despite the Hawkeyes scoring 13 points off turnovers in the first half, they still had trouble controlling star freshman Miles Bridges and dealing with Michigan State’s size in the paint.

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Bridges scored 14 points on 6-of-10 shooting and grabbed five rebounds in the first half. He showed his versatile scoring by knocking down a pair of corner threes, hammering home a vicious dunk early in the game and scoring from cutting to the basket on one of Michigan State’s nine first half assists.

With Ward, who finished with 14 points and five rebounds after only playing four minutes in the first half, back in the second half, Bridges didn’t need to score as much in the second half. He still finished with 16 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks, though.

Also, Peter Jok didn’t score until 1:57 remained in the half, while Jordan Bohannon only played six minutes in the first half because he picked up two fouls. Christian Williams played very well in Bohannon’s place, as he finished with four points, three rebounds and three steals, but the Hawkeyes missed their two best three-point shooters.

In fact, Michigan State held Bohannon scoreless for the first time in his career and Jok to only 2-of-11 shooting and 0-of-5 three-point shooting on the night. As a team, Iowa only shot 19 percent from three and 32.8 percent from the field, yet continued to take contested outside shots as they rarely had an open look in the paint.

Once they stopped getting as many opportunities from Michigan State’s turnovers in the second half, the Hawkeyes struggled to stay close. Their poor shooting caught up to them and Michigan State’s size and athleticism became too much to handle on the defensive end.