Sioux Fall, S.D. – In its first road game of the season, No. 3 Iowa men’s basketball faced No. 1 Gonzaga at the Sanford Pentagon and fell, 99-88.

During the game, Iowa trailed by as many as 20 points. The Hawkeyes were plagued by poor rebounding and shooting throughout the game. In total, Iowa corralled just 37 rebounds, and only 13 of those boards came in the first half.

Meanwhile, the Bulldogs cleaned the glass all game long – hauling in 49 rebounds.

According to Iowa’s Luka Garza, the Hawkeyes’ poor rebounding performance wasn’t a matter of being outmatched, but rather one of effort.

“We didn’t get enough fifty-fifty balls,” Garza said. “I think there were some weird bounces, but we have to make sure we adjust to them and go after them with all we’ve got, and I don’t think we did that tonight. For us to win these kinds of games, we need to be the tougher team. We need to be the grittier team. We need to get those fifty-fifty balls. So, that’s a battle we need to make sure, for the rest of the season, we win.”

Garza pulled down 10 boards and scored 30 points on the game, contributing to Gonzaga’s starting forwards, Corey Kispert and Drew Timme, foulding out of the game. 

“[Garza] is a handful,” Gonzaga head men’s basketball coach Mark Few said. “He’s a wonderful player, and he about fouled our whole team out. . . [We] were also very concerned about their 3-point shooters and just giving those guys open looks out there.”

Few’s squad did bottle up Iowa’s shooters, giving Garza little help on the offensive end of the floor. The Hawkeyes posted their lowest field goal percentage of the season at 46.6 percent on 35-of-75 shooting from the field. 

Iowa was also uncharacteristically cool from both the free-throw line and the 3-point arc. The Hawkeyes shot 4-of-22 from distance, posting a 18 percent 3-point percentage. Iowa also missed 12 of its 26 free throw attempts – an abysmal 53 percent from the charity stripe.

“I think overall they did a pretty good job defensively,” junior Joe Wieskamp said. “They mixed it up. Like Luka said, [the Bulldogs doubled] him on the dribble. On the catch they were finding shooters. I think a couple times I could’ve shot fades, try to get a pull-up, or things like that. For the most part, I think we did a good job offensively. The defensive end is where we need to improve. They were getting out in transition too much. They were having it at will, really.”

The 99 points Iowa gave up defensively is the most they’ve surrendered all season. The Hawkeyes allowed five Bulldogs to score in double figures on the day – including point guard Jalen Suggs who put up 27 points.

Gonzaga shot over 50 percent from the field, counting 13 made 3-pointers on just 26 shots from downtown.

“They’ve got a lot of weapons, so you’ve got to try to stop all of it,” Hawkeye head coach Fran McCaffery said. “It starts with transition, then ball-screen defense, and then rebounding. In the first half we didn’t do a good job in transition, credit them.”

“They made that one run in the first half,” McCaffery said. “I think, if you look at it, that may be the biggest difference in the game. There’s like a 13-0 run and we lose by eleven. We fought, but we just have to be a little bit better there.”

Iowa will be back at Carver-Hawkeye Arena for its next game – a date with Purdue Dec. 22.