Iowa basketball: Hawks drop game at Ohio State after emotional month

The Iowa basketball team has had quite the roller coaster of emotion the past few weeks between close games and outside controversies. It showed last night.

If you don’t think the last few weeks have taken a toll on the Iowa basketball team, just rewatch last nights game. The exciting last-second wins and losses were fun to watch and probably took a year or two off of my life, but those types of games can be emotionally exhausting. Factor in the outside controversy brought to life by Athletic Director Gary Barta’s mishandling of the Gary Dolphin situation (for what it’s worth, Dolphin will serve out his suspension this year and return next), and that’s quite a load to handle for an Iowa basketball team that is competing for a high seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Despite starting the game strong against the Ohio State Buckeyes jumping out to a 7-0 lead, the Hawkeyes couldn’t maintain it over the course of the contest. It also didn’t help that the Buckeyes starting hitting (what seemed like) every single three-pointer. The Iowa basketball team couldn’t keep up, but they did manage to enter halftime down just three points.

The second half, however, was much worse than the first. The Buckeyes used a 11-2 run from the 17-minute mark until the 14-minute mark to essentially seal the deal as they were able to withstand any surge the Hawks attempted to make. The Buckeyes would win 90-70 marking the second-highest offensive output by the Buckeyes this season and the worst defensive performance by the Hawks.

Four big factors contributed to this:

• The Iowa basketball team played lackluster defense, not closing out on open three-point shooters and not hustling for the ball. Furthermore, Ohio State figured out how to attack Iowa’s 2-3 defense by dishing the ball in the paint to Kaleb Wesson and letting him run the offensive attack from just a few feet away from the basket. After starting 0-7 from three, the Buckeyes shot 50% from three the rest of the game.
• Even when Ohio State did miss, they did a fantastic job of cleaning up the boards. They outrebounded the Iowa basketball team 36 to 26.
• Outside of Luka Garza and Joe Wieskamp, the other three starters hit just 8 of their 28 shots on the day for a combined 23 points.
• The refereeing was inconsistent to say the least. It seemed like any time Kaleb Wesson took a shot, there was a foul called. Meanwhile, Connor McCaffery couldn’t buy a foul despite showing a more aggressive offensive approach than he did in the past. He also collected a questionable technical foul call late in the second half.

Although the Iowa basketball team did suffer their second-worst loss of the season, it is a loss that I expected to happen.

Moreover, there’s a chance this loss inspires the Hawks to close out the season strong with Rutgers at home and Wisconsin and Nebraska on the road.