By Adam Hensley
In a game in which the Hawkeye offense and defense were nowhere to be found, Northwestern (15-4) dismantled Iowa (11-8), 89-54, on Jan. 15.
The Wildcats improved to 4-2 in Big Ten play, while the Hawkeyes dropped to .500 (3-3).
Peter Jok, who had been a consistent high-volume scorer up to this point, mustered a meager 4 points and failed to hit a single 3-pointer.
“I think pretty much everything went wrong,” Jok said in a release. “We weren’t ready from the get-go. We didn’t follow the game plan; we didn’t focus in on the individual [plan].”
It was a drastic drop-off in comparison with his 29-point outing on Jan. 12 against Purdue. In that game, Jok nailed four of his seven 3-point attempts. Overall, he connected on 11-of-19.
Against Northwestern, he missed seven of his nine shots from the field and didn’t get to the free-throw line once.
Only two Hawkeyes recorded double digits in the scoring column — Tyler Cook and Ryan Kriener. Each freshman scored 14 points.
Most of Cook’s damage came at the free-throw line, sinking eight of his nine attempts. He also snagged a team-high 5 rebounds.
“We’ll watch film — I’m sure there’s stuff that we did right,” Cook said in a release. “We made a decent run [in the second half]. Obviously, there’s a lot of things we need to learn from as well that weren’t so good.”
Kriener was one of only three Hawkeyes to connect from deep (Jordan Bohannon and Nicholas Baer were the other two).
“I came in and tried to give as much energy as I could and took open shots when they were there,” Kriener said in a release.
As a team, Iowa finished 4-of-17 from downtown.
Meanwhile, the Wildcats torched the Hawkeyes from beyond the arc. They hit 11 of their 24 3-point attempts, keeping a foot on the gas pedal at all times and limiting Iowa’s chances to hang in the game.
“They started off hot,” Jok said in a release. “One of our main things was not letting them start hot, because once they start hot, they’re a hard team to beat. They shot lights out.”
Northwestern’s Scottie Lindsey and Bryant McIntosh scored 22 and 20 points. McIntosh also dished out 10 assists.
At the half, Iowa trailed 44-32 — a manageable deficit the Hawkeyes had been in before. Recently against Purdue, Iowa trailed by 9 points at the half, then went on to win, 93-78.
However, turnovers piled up for the Hawkeyes — 14, to be exact — at inopportune times.
Northwestern committed 12 turnovers, but made up for those mistakes in the assist department with 29.
Iowa had 12.
Earlier this season, Iowa’s defense in the paint proved to be porous, but the Hawkeyes seemed to patch things up as the season went on. In Evanston, the Wildcats outscored Iowa 42-18 in that category.
Iowa fans will be pleased to know this trip to Evanston will be the Hawkeyes’ lone contest with the Wildcats in the regular season. However, an even tougher team sits on deck.
No. 25 Maryland, which has the top record in the Big Ten and possesses one of the conference’s best players in Melo Trimble, will travel to Carver-Hawkeye at 6 p.m. Thursday.
