By Blake Dowson
As far as midweek road games in the dog days of Big Ten conference play go, they don’t get much uglier than the Hawkeye’s performance against Illinois on Wednesday night in Champaign, a 76-64 loss to move the Hawkeyes to 11-10, 3-5 in the conference.
Iowa has gotten into a habit of digging itself into early holes during conference play; it trailed 8-0 in games against Purdue, Northwestern, and Maryland, and spotted the Illini 10 points before Christian Williams finally got an awkward floater to fall four minutes into the contest.
Iowa trailed by as many as 15 to the Terrapins before taking the lead in that game in the second half, but playing with fire proved too dangerous against the Illini, as the Hawkeyes got burnt and couldn’t recover.
“It was a combination of things,” Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said of his team’s slow start. “I thought their defense was really active at the start of the game, and so was their ball movement, so I think you got to give them credit for that.”
The Hawkeyes hadn’t played since their Jan. 19 loss against Maryland — a long break for this time of year — yet it looked like there were a lot of heavy legs and tired lungs in black jerseys.
It was apparent in the turnover numbers; the Hawkeyes had 13 in the game, on pace with their 14 per game season average.
It showed up at the free-throw line as well. One week after it looked like there might be an uptick on the charity stripe, the Hawkeyes made only 3-of-10 in the first half and went 7-16 for the game.
However, the biggest effect on the game may have been Peter Jok’s health, which seemed to deteriorate throughout the game. Jok has had well-documented back problems this season, but it seemed to bother him more Wednesday night than it has all season.
The conference’s leading scorer managed only 10 points on 3-of-9 shooting in 32 minutes.
“He’s really shifty and crafty with his body off the ball,” said Malcolm Hill, who guarded Jok much of the game. “He’s good with the ball, too. I just tried to stay attached to him the best possible, and he has great screeners, too. I think they set great screens, so I was just trying to find my way through the screens and try to guard him when he had the ball.”
The trip to Champaign had the feeling of a major swing game for the Hawkeyes — if Iowa had picked up the win, it would have been back at .500 in the conference and tied for sixth place, and also, it would have received its first road conference win, a rather large monkey on its back.
Instead, the loss makes three-straight for the Hawkeyes, moving them into a tie for 10th in the conference.
“What we have to do is take a step back and evaluate a lot of things,” McCaffery said. “Certainly, starting with right here. Did we not do a good enough job getting these guys ready? We have to do a better job. We didn’t come out ready. It’s not their fault, it’s my fault.
“We got to evaluate that. How we’re putting our scouting together, our game plans, and then how can we effectively execute a game plan better than we did in the last three games.”