For the first time since 2005, the Iowa men’s basketball team won a game in a pre-Big Ten season challenge, defeating Notre Dame, 98-93, on Tuesday night in a packed Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Five different Hawkeyes scored in the double digits, while Notre Dame senior center Garrick Sherman made the Black and Gold look silly, scoring 29 points — a career high —while recording 9 rebounds.
But buried in the stats of the contest is that Iowa junior forward Aaron White became the 41st Hawkeye to hit 1,000 career points. The Strongsville, Ohio, native recorded the milestone in rather unspectacular fashion, hitting the mark on the first of two free-throws with less than a second left to put the game against the Fighting Irish away.
“I was kind of nervous on that free throw,” White said. “Somebody had told me I needed that free throw. I was nervous to be honest with you, the game was in hand, there was like half a second left, but I was nervous. I don’t know why, I was going to get it eventually.”
Iowa senior Devyn Marble is the only other current Hawkeye to have recorded 1,000 career points, sitting with 1,285 in his Iowa campaign, good for 17th on the all-time scoring list for Iowa.
After the game, he reminisced about the time he scored his 1,000th point and reflected on what it means to hit such a benchmark.
“He knew what he was doing when he got to the line,” Marble said.
White told reporters that he got nervous because someone reminded him of the lofty stat he was about to hit, but Marble said that’s not what happened.
“No, he told me,” Marble laughed. “We were all looking for him. That’s my guy, he was able to get it, I’m happy for him. It’s just another accomplishment for him, one of many more to come.”
The team didn’t make an event of White’s occasion. Iowa forward Jarrod Uthoff said that while he’s looking forward to scoring 1,000 of his own, the Black and Gold squad wasn’t made aware of White’s accomplishment until they all got in the locker room after the game.
White didn’t make a huge deal out of it, either. Humble as always, he was quick to distribute credit for his successes to teammates and Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery.
“It’s very cool,” White said. “To have it eight games into my junior season is a blessing. I’ve been able to play since I stepped on campus, I’ve been pretty fortunate enough to play with good guards that can get me the basketball. Coach McCaffery obviously has had a lot of belief in me; it means a lot.”