Bol Bol could have been 7-7 like his dad, Manute, but it still wouldn’t have helped in Oregon’s battle against Iowa Thursday.

The Hawkeyes showed up under the bright lights of Madison Square Garden with their best performance of the season, beating the Ducks, 77-69, for Iowa’s first win over a ranked team since March 2, 2017.

Iowa started early and didn’t let up. The Hawkeyes went on three different runs that were at least 8-0, including starting the game with an 8-point lead while holding Oregon scoreless.

Eventually, Iowa closed the first half on a 14-4 run, and a lot of it was because of its success from behind the arc.

The Hawkeyes drained 8 of their 16 shots from 3-point range in the first half.

“I think we were just moving the ball really well,” point guard Jordan Bohannon said. “We knew they were a team that gets up into you. They’re pressing you the whole 40 minutes. We knew we were going to get open shots.”

Their defense didn’t look like it did last year, either. After a dreadful 2017-18 on the defensive end of the floor, Iowa forced the Ducks to go just 6-of-18 from deep (1-of-9 in the first) and held them to 69 points.

The game resembled Iowa’s contest against Missouri-Kansas City in which the Hawkeyes held the Kangaroos to just 36 percent shooting from the field.

Iowa kept Oregon to just 37 percent shooting after it averaged 82.5 points a game in its first two games.

Bol, who left the game for about four minutes with a leg injury before returning, dropped 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting. He made his presence known on the defensive end, however, swatting away 4 shots.

“I think any time you get the chance to go against not only an individual, but a team as good as the other guys in that locker room, it’s something that you look forward to,” forward Tyler Cook said. “We were looking forward to this challenge, both with defending Bol and the rest of their squad… We’re competitors. We want to come out here and play against the best.”

He wasn’t invincible, though. Iowa forward Ryan Kriener went to work on Bol down low multiple times and even stepped out to hit a 3 from NBA range at one point.

Kriener reached double figures for the second game in a row, filling the bucket with 11 points and adding 3 boards.

In addition to Kriener’s stellar performance off the bench, Bohannon added 16 on just 3-of-10 shooting, but went 9-for-10 from the free-throw line, and Cook had 9 points and 10 rebounds.

Luka Garza also stepped up, finishing with a total of 12 points and 4 boards, hitting 2 3-pointers in the process.

Iowa started to let the Ducks crawl slowly back into the game in the second, going on a field goal drought of more than nine minutes, but a Garza 3-ball snapped the streak and kept the Hawkeyes on top.

The Hawkeyes don’t have much time to celebrate after upsetting the Ducks, however. Iowa is now in the 2K Empire Classic Championship where it will face Connecticut, which beat No. 15 Syracuse, 83-76, in the semifinals.

It might not have seemed possible after Iowa gave up 82 points to Green Bay Sunday, but the 2K Empire Classic is shaping up to be a solid tournament for the Hawkeyes.