By Adam Hensley
The middle of the Big Ten is a cluttered mess at the moment.
Five teams, including Iowa (7-8), have between 7 or 9 wins in the conference.
A win at Maryland (22-6) would certainly help the Hawkeyes’ chances of separating themselves from the pack.
Once the opening tip goes up at 5 p.m. Saturday, the Hawkeyes have a chance to avenge their loss to the Terrapins in Carver-Hawkeye.
And if Iowa plays as aggressive as it did in a 96-90 overtime win against Indiana on Tuesday, anything’s possible in College Park, Maryland.
Peter Jok finished with a pedestrian game from the field (6-of-12 shooting, 1-of-6 from 3-point range), but went off from the free-throw line, sinking 22 of his 23 attempts and scoring 35 points in total.
“He’s always had an unbelievable stroke,” head coach Fran McCaffery said. “I mean, his form is textbook. He’s got great confidence in it. But when it comes off his hands so nicely, and he shoots it the same way every time. Everything you’ve ever heard a shooting coach talk about, his follow-through, where he puts his hands, his elbow. I mean, it’s perfection.”
Iowa as a team put on a clinic on how to get to the stripe. The Hawkeyes shot 47 free throws, 28 more than the Hoosiers.
Jok wanted the ball in his hands in overtime.
“Our last close game, I didn’t step up,” he said. “When we went to overtime, I told the guys [to] focus on defense. On offense, I wanted the ball in my hands because I felt like I had a mismatch pretty much all game. I just wanted to get to the free-throw line.”
Jok wasn’t the only one putting up points in an aggressive fashion.
Christian Williams, who McCaffery has used for defense recently, scored a career-high 10 points in the victory.
“We needed this [win] bad,” Williams said. “We’ve been working hard trying to get better, and we haven’t really been getting rewarded.”
He played alongside Jordan Bohannon, an on-court combination that really hasn’t been touched since Bohannon took over the starting role earlier in the season.
Williams’ aggressiveness led to an increase in minutes, which lead to a fast break steal and slam.
“I just felt Christian’s energy level and his defense were spectacular,” McCaffery said. “From the opening tip, he was great in both halves.”
Even though the Terrapins enter this weekend’s contest on a two-game losing streak, the Hawkeyes are looking past that. This Maryland squad knocked off Iowa in a roller-coaster contest, 84-76, in late January.
It’s a given that memories of Melo Trimble knocking down 3-pointer after 3-pointer come to mind when remembering this game; his late-game heroics boosted the Terrapins in crunch time.
But the Hawkeyes’ win against Indiana showed that they can take over late, too.
One of the game’s defining moments came when Tyler Cook threw down a thunderous two-handed dunk over Indiana’s Thomas Bryant.
He followed his athletic play up with an emphatic, cold stare-down.
Iowa needs that sort of aggressive swagger if it wants to take down the No. 24 team in the country.