Iowa basketball: Hawks get signature road win vs Indiana

The Iowa basketball team is on a two-game winning streak after taking down the Indiana Hoosiers at Assembly Hall last night.

Much has been said about the Iowa basketball team’s struggles away from Carver Hawkeye Arena, but the Hawks were able to put away a few doubters last night when knocking off the Indiana Hoosiers in one of the toughest environments in college basketball, Assembly Hall.

Sure, the Hoosiers are in the midst of losing eight of their last nine games, but prior to their big win on the road against Michigan State, this team wasn’t completely healthy. That, and they too struggle on the road as they are 10-3 at home and 2-7 on the road. So say what you want about this 13-10 Indiana team, but winning on the road against the Hoosiers is a lot better than beating Northwestern or Penn State on the road.

To propel the Iowa basketball team though, it took huge games by Jordan Bohannon and Tyler Cook with Luka Garza limited to just 13 minutes due to foul trouble and Isaiah Moss struggling to get off the bench after collecting two fouls and shooting 0 for 4.

It wasn’t easy, however, and it was filled with some real streaky scoring bouts from each team.

The Hawks opened up the game on a 9-2 run before Indiana responded with a 13-2 run of their own. Iowa immediately went on a 15-3 run before the game became slightly more consistent in the first half. Fran McCaffery’s squad would close out the half up 46-36.

In the second half, the Iowa basketball team was able to keep an 8 to 10-point gap between them and their opposing team, the Indiana Hoosiers, for the first 14 minutes of the half before Indiana began to give Hawk fans a real scare. With 6:20 left in the game, star freshman Romeo Langford hit a jumper to make the game 63-59. Iowa’s star freshman Joe Wieskamp would hit one free throw just a few seconds later to make it 64-59 and it would stay that way for nearly two minutes of playing time before each team began trading blows in the final minutes.

The Hawks were able to hang on in the waning minutes to win 77-72 with the help of big shot Bohannon who carried the team down the stretch hitting two clutch 3s and draining 5 of 6 foul shots in the final minute and a half of play (stat courtesy of Chad Leistikow).

While Bohannon has received a lot of flack lately for his shooting, he came in big when it mattered last night in Bloomington and the Iowa basketball team walked away with its 18th win of the season, two shy of the magical 20-win threshold.

With the Hawks going 2-2 in their toughest stretch of the season, they now face an easier test over the coming weeks, which provides a real opportunity to move up in the standings and their NCAA tournament positioning. Coming back from Indiana with a win is huge, and the Hawks have the chance to go possibly 6-2 over their final eight games of the season.