By Blake Dowson
There is a scene in the movie Miracle in which the 1980 U.S. men’s hockey coach Herb Brooks is yelling at his team after a disappointing showing on international ice.
Brooks was preparing a bunch of college kids to take on the world’s best hockey players at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, and his players seemed to lack the hard work necessary to medal in the Olympics.
What comes next is one of the better scenes in any sports movie, in which Brooks pushes his players until they all collapse.
“You think you can win on talent alone?” Brooks says on the ice. “Gentlemen, you don’t have enough talent to win on talent alone.”
Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery’s halftime speech during the Hawkeye’s recent game against Maryland was probably something similar to that.
Iowa was down, 41-32, having shown the fans in attendance little of what basketball is supposed to look like.
“I didn’t think our effort at the beginning of the game matched their ability to move the ball and execute with our offense,” McCaffery said.
But during the second half, something lit a fire under sophomore forward Ahmad Wagner. Maybe it was a Herb Brooks-inspired speech from McCaffery at halftime, maybe something else.
Regardless, after scoring only 2 points (from the free-throw line) in four minutes during the first half, Wagner scored 10 points in the second, along with 5 rebounds (4 offensive) and an assist.
It led to an Iowa comeback, and lead at a couple points, before the Hawkeyes ultimately fell to Maryland, 84-76.
“He was the difference in the game,” McCaffery said. “There’s no question about that. He sort of imposed his will on that game, which isn’t easy to do against a team that’s that athletic. But he did, and I’m really proud of him.”
Wagner’s performance against a talented Terrapin frontcourt was the best of his early Hawkeye career.
The Ohio native came to Iowa City as more of an elite athlete trying to figure out basketball than a polished Big Ten player. (To put his athleticism into perspective, he picked football up during high school and was recruited by schools such as Kentucky and Ohio State.)
For much of the sophomore’s first year and a half on Mediacom Court in Carver-Hawkeye, he looked like just that — a superb athlete trying to figure basketball out. There were a lot of impressive offensive rebounds, followed by a blown put-back. Or a run-out in transition leading to a foul, only to have Wagner miss both free throws.
All of that came together against Maryland, but it stemmed from what Wagner has brought to the table since Day 1.
“I was trying to just bring effort and energy to the team,” he said. “We were sluggish in the beginning, so I was trying to bring energy. That’s what I always try to do.”
Wagner finished 3-of-5 from the field and 6-of-8 from the line, all in just 15 minutes.
“When Ahmad plays like that, he can be a special player,” sophomore Nicholas Baer said. “The thing I was most proud of him tonight was his free-throw shooting … he did a phenomenal job on the offensive glass, putting pressure on their bigs to box him out, and when he plays with energy like that, he’s a special player.”
