After a sluggish start to the season, the men’s Iowa basketball team turned it on Thursday night defeating #13 Oregon 77-69 in the 2K Empire Classic.
The first two games of the Iowa basketball season had a few fans raising a few questions about this team considering they were played tough by two opponents who aren’t exactly power house teams. That being said, the men’s team was struggling to shoot the ball successfully, which was not an issue last season allowing the UMKC Kangaroos and Green Bay Phoenix to stay in the game for longer than they should have.
Heading into the matchup with the #13 Oregon Ducks, the Iowa basketball team needed their shots to fall, and they needed to figure out a way to minimize the effectiveness of Oregon’s big men including five-star recruit Bol Bol. After watching last night’s relatively surprising upset, I would say job well down by Fran McCaffrey’s squad.
The Iowa basketball team started off hot and with the foot pushed fully down on the pedal, and they never relented for forty minutes. In fact, the Oregon Ducks never held a lead the entire game.
Out of the gate, Iowa won the jump ball and star forward Tyler Cook was putting the ball in the basket for two points just 18 seconds later. Within seven minutes, Iowa had built a 21-9 lead on the backs of an 8-13 combined shooting performance to open the game including four made three-pointers. The closest Oregon would come to taking a lead from that point on was after an Ehab Armin free throw made the game 22-26.
The Iowa basketball team, however, went on a 13-6 run to close out the half up 39-28.
Iowa’s hot shooting cooled slightly in the second half but they more than made up for it by consistent free throw shooting and maintaining the pace with Oregon, who would ultimately outscore the Hawks in the second half 41-39, but it was too little too late.
Despite starting strong, the Hawks shooting percentage was just 36.5% for the game and they were 34.5% from behind the arc. As mentioned above though, the difference was in free throw shooting where Iowa shot 29-33 compared to Oregon’s 17-24.
Offensively, Jordan Bohannon was the leading scorer with 16 points in a team-high 34 minutes of play. Tyler Cook managed to haul in double-digit boards for the first time this season, leading the team with 10, and eight different Hawkeyes made a three-pointer in the contest.
Defensively, the Hawks did a great job making sure freshman phenom Bol Bol didn’t hurt them too bad. He only went 5-11 from the field and had his lowest rebound total of the season with nine.
Winning this game set up the Hawks with a matchup against the University of Connecticut Huskies tonight at 630 PM EST for the 2K Empire Classic Tournament Final. The game can be found on ESPN2.
Like the Hawks, the Huskies are coming off an upset victory over #15 Syracuse so to say this finals matchup is unexpected would be the honest route to go.
For an Iowa basketball program looking to rebound from a poor 2017-2018 showing, starting the season off 4-0 with an early-season tournament win would be a fantastic start for Fran McCaffrey and the men’s basketball team.