Iowa Basketball: Hawks Survive Illini

The #18 ranked Iowa Basketball team was able to survive late over the #19 Illinois Fighting Illini.

Luka Garza for the first 12 minutes was held scoreless and looked vulnerable for really the first time of the season, Iowa trailed by eight and needed something to turn. Well, look no further than the national player of the year candidate. Garza finished a layup and the free throw then went on to score 13 points in the next two minutes to rejuvenate the Hawkeye faithful.

Garza would go on to get another double-double with a team-high 25 points and 11 rebounds. Connor McCaffery played the best game of his season knocking down three, threes while adding a team-high 7 assists to zero (0!!) turnovers and was poised running the point down the stretch. CJ Fredrick was awesome and finished with eighteen points on 2/4 from beyond the arc.

It was just a solid team win against a very talented Illini team. It was chippy, as we saw in the post-game handshake line after Joe Weiskamp threw down an electrifying dunk on the best deep pass you’ll see all day (oops forgot Patrick Mahones is playing in the Super Bowl tonight).

But in the end, Iowa was able to hold off the streaking Illinois to end their winning streak at seven. Illinois’ bench dominated Iowa’s with the leading scorer Andre Feliz coming off the bench and finishing with 17 points. Garza held Illini center Kofi Cockburn to just 6 points and 6 rebounds, both well below his season averages of 14 and 9.

It was just an awesome team win, Carver was rocking and the loudest it has been all season (for a basketball game because I’m not sure it has ever been louder than when Michael Kemmer upset Mark Hall of Penn State in the #1 vs #2 wrestling duel Friday night). But Iowa needed this win to get back on track after stuttering to Maryland.

Iowa will likely stay around #18 in the country and is back in action Tuesday in a tough road game against the Purdue Boilermakers.