The Hawkeyes’ long-range shooters appeared to be looking ahead to the upcoming rivalry matchup with Iowa State this Friday.

Luckily for them, their short-range guys weren’t.

Iowa dominated down low, highlighted by sophomore forward Aaron White’s 21-point, 6-rebound effort in an 87-63 victory over South Dakota in Carver-Hawkeye Arena Tuesday night. After trailing 25-24 in the latter part of the first half, the Hawkeyes went on a 21-5 run, including 6 points by White, just before the break to assume the lead for good.

Freshman center Adam Woodbury had 10 points and 6 rebounds while sophomore center Gabe Olaseni had a second half to remember off the bench, finishing with 8 points and 9 rebounds.

The three big men spearheaded the Black and Gold’s overwhelming presence underneath the hoop, which led to a 54-14 advantage in points in the paint.

“I haven’t looked at the stats, but that’s a good number,” White said. “We tried to exploit their size. They’re a smaller team than us, and our guards and bigs did a good job getting it down low.”

Freshman guard Anthony Clemmons started for the second-consecutive contest in place of struggling Zach McCabe and finished with 4 points and 8 assists.

The most impressive stat for the new starting point guard, though, was the zero turnovers he committed — something Iowa’s guards have struggled with this season.

“[Anthony’s] seeing things. A matchup zone is not the easiest thing to play against unless you have feel for how to play, unless you see it,” Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said. “He made great decisions; when to pass it in, when to drive it in the gap and on the baseline, and when to or not to shoot it. He was fabulous.”

The same accolades could not be given to the squad’s 3-point shooting, however.

The Hawkeyes turned in an abysmal 2-16 (12.5 percent) performance from outside the arc, headlined by junior guard Devyn Marble, sophomore guard Josh Oglesby, and freshman guard Mike Gesell, who collectively finished 0-9 from 3-point land.

McCabe posted a 1-5 night from long-distance and tossed up an air ball on his final attempt from 3-point range.

McCaffery noted the upperclassman’s struggles and described how he handled his forward after a disappointing performance.

“Zach’s pressing. He’s a terrific 3-point shooter, and I told him ,‘one bad shot,’ ” McCaffery said. “The last one he took was a bad one; he didn’t catch it right.”

Marble rebounded to score 14 points along with 8 boards, and Gesell added 12. But it was more about what the team’s guards didn’t do than what they did on a sometimes-sloppy night.

But even though the 3-point numbers were ugly, Marble insisted that nights like these don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things.

“I’m not worried about it — I had two that went in and out,” Marble said. “Being able to shoot when the game is tighter will be more important. As long as we can make those shots when the game is on the line, we’ll be fine.”

The junior further denied his team coming down with a case of looking-ahead to their date with the Cyclones at the end of the week. White didn’t totally agree with his teammate, though, instead deciding to treat Tuesday as a nice precursor to a big rivalry game.

“Everyone’s looking forward to Friday, and it was a good win,” White said. “We needed a game like this.”