In Iowa’s nail-biter win over Bryant on Dec. 29, Jordan Bohannon scored 17 points, making just five of his 12 shots from the floor.

Then, against Purdue, the junior followed up that performance with an 8-point outing, in which he shot 2-for-5 from the field.

Say that he was due for a game like the one he had on Sunday if you will, but Bohannon went off for a season-high 25 points in No. 25 Iowa’s win over No. 24 Nebraska.

The shot that started it all was a running, 30-foot 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer – a prayer, according to Bohannon. It was a bucket that not only banked in at the horn but brought the 11,782 fans in Carver to their feet.

“It’s nice to see one of those shots go in, especially in the season I’ve been having shooting the ball,” Bohannon said. “My teammates did a really good job finding me tonight, and I was able to knock some shots down. I just kept shooting. That’s what I do.”

Bohannon drained five of his eight attempts from 3-point range, and he said after each one, his confidence kept growing, especially against Nebraska’s zone defense.

“That’s kind of the shooter’s mentality that I have,” he said. “When you make one, the basket starts getting bigger. Something in your eye makes it feel like every shot you have is going to go in. When they went 1-3-1, guys did a really good job finding me, and I was able to step into shots and knock them down.”

Nebraska head coach Tim Miles knew that going into the game, his zone defense would allow for someone on the Iowa offense to have space to shoot.

Bohannon was that guy.

“He’s a really good player in a zone attack,” Miles said. “He’s in the gap, you know he’s going to get something up.”

After a few of his lesser shooting performances had Bohannon questioning his confidence, but the Hawkeye coaching staff continued to give the shooter the green light.

“He knows all I’ve ever done is encourage him to keep shooting,” Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said. “We set him up, run stuff for him, encourage him. He can miss three, four in a row in practice – maybe two that you never expect him to miss – and we’ll keep telling him to shoot. That’s what he does. When it’s all said and done, he’s going to end up with a pretty good line.”

And while Bohannon saw a clear improvement in play from his last couple of outings, the Hawkeye program itself did the same. As a whole, the Hawkeyes bounced back in much-needed fashion; a loss against Nebraska would have put Iowa at 0-4 in the Big Ten – a treacherous hole to hypothetically climb out of.

But in the win over Nebraska, Iowa got its top shooter back on track, and the Hawkeyes finally reached the win column in conference play thanks to their ability to flush any remaining thoughts of poor performances down the drain.

“For use to get into the tournament, it’s going to come down to little details. Being ready for practices after a tough loss to Purdue – okay, what do you do now? Do you bounce back, or are you going to dwell on it the next day?” Bohannon said. “Good teams bounce back.”