Iowa Basketball: Hawkeyes Comeback to Beat Badgers

With 7:13 left in the second half, D’Mitrirk Trice hit his third three of the game to boost his point total to 15 and to stretch the Wisconsin lead to twelve. Things for the Hawkeyes looked bleak, the threes weren’t falling, Luka Garza was getting mugged in the paint much to the dismay of the Carver-Hawkeye Arena attendees and halfway through the second half, I was pretty certain I could find an open shot against Iowa’s press.

But how did Iowa answer against a Wisconsin program that had won in Carver in three of their last four? Holding the Badgers to five points in the final five minutes and going on a 23-5 run to close the game out and improve their winning streak to five straight games.

Hawkeye teams in previous years would have folded. No disrespect to the teams in previous years, but no other team in the Fran McCaffery era was going to win that game. But this Hawkeye team? They took the punches and hit back in a huge way and were able to mount a huge comeback win over Wisconsin.

Luka Garza quietly dominated despite being aggressively attacked by the Wisconsin bigs and finished the game with 21 points and 18 rebounds. CJ Fredrick has been unbelievable in this Hawkeye winning streak and finished with 15 points and none bigger than his three to cut the lead to three with 5:08 left.

Joe Touissant looked like a grizzled veteran down the stretch going to the rim strong and finishing the bucket and the free-throw to take the lead with 1:20 left.

I don’t really know what to say other than what a game. What a comeback. Having been an Iowa fan for my entire life, I was ready to toss in the towel and move onto Maryland. But this team doesn’t quit. They believe in themselves.

It was scrappy, it was physical, it was dirty (as seems to be the case whenever Brad Davidson is in the game) and it was ugly. But in the end, it was a Hawkeye win. But that game is best wrapped up by CJ Fredrick while being hot mic’d by the Big Ten camera crew “Get the [expelcitive] out of my gym.”

Iowa improved their record to 15-5 overall and 6-3 in the Big Ten and find themselves just 1 game back in the Big Ten.