Shooting, defense key in Hawkeyes’ victory over Gophers

Iowa shot 48 percent from deep to reverse roles and take down Minnesota.

Pete Ruden, [email protected]

January 30, 2018

Iowa forward Isaiah Moss (4) goes for a dunk in the second half of the NCAA men’s basketball game between Iowa and Minnesota at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. The Hawkeyes are going into the game with a Big Ten conference record of 2-8. Iowa went on to defeat the Golden Gophers 94-80. (Ben Allan Smith/The Daily Iowan)

Before Iowa took on Minnesota at Carver-Hawkeye on Jan. 30, there was an issue with the lights at the arena.

It could’ve been an omen since teams have been shooting the lights out against the Hawkeyes all season, but instead, Iowa took care of business with a 94-80 victory over the Golden Gophers for their third Big Ten win of the season.

This time, it was the Hawkeyes who were on fire from deep, as Isaiah Moss and Jordan Bohannon helped Iowa to a 48 percent clip from 3-point range.

Moss came out of the halftime break, hitting a shot from behind the arc to extend Iowa’s lead that it wouldn’t surrender.

Bohannon had himself a very nice game, scoring 20 and dishing out 10 dimes, while Moss hit 4 3-pointers on his way to dropping 16.

Still, the Hawkeyes came close to giving the lead up at certain points. Sloppy turnovers in the first half erased an 11-1 lead that Iowa built by being aggressive on both ends of the floor, and kept it close for the remainder of the half.

Time and time again, though, the Hawkeyes were bailed out by their shooting, which delighted the once-dormant Carver crowd.

“I talked about yesterday, trying to get [Moss] going,” Bohannon said. “Trying to create some open shots with him, because It’s going to start kind of contributing to my success on the offensive end as well, because I’ll penetrate a little more and get other people open, and you saw kind of that tonight; when he was going, I was able to get going a little bit too.”

In addition to its hot shooting, Iowa scored 38 points in the paint, which is where Tyler Cook did most of his damage.

Cook finished with 17 points to go along with 10 rebounds, and Luka Garza and Cordell Pemsl both added 10 as well.

The Hawkeyes also improved their defense dramatically since losing to Nebraska on Jan. 27.

After allowing 98 points on over 57 percent shooting, Iowa held Minnesota to 80 on just over 44 percent from the floor.

Jordan Murphy caused problems throughout the game, posting a 20-point, 7-rebound performance, but his monster numbers weren’t enough to keep his Gophers in the game.

“I just think we were as locked in as we possibly could be tonight and I think that showed a lot on the defensive end, after coming off the Nebraska game [where] we gave up 98,” Pemsl said. “Our guys did a really good job of locking into personnel, knowing who does what and then getting the job done on defense.”

The victory also marked McCaffery’s 400th win of his career. He has picked up wins at Iowa, Sienna, UNC Greensboro, and Lehigh, but he doesn’t think he is the one who should be getting all the credit.