Iowa men’s hoops blows 11-point second-half lead in loss to Ohio State
The Hawkeyes have lost three of their last four games.
Kate Heston-Daily Iowan via Imagn Content Services LLC
Iowa’s Joe Wieskamp (10) is seen moments after a 3-point shot during a men’s basketball game between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Ohio State Buckeyes at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021. The Buckeyes defeated the Hawkeyes in a close game, 89-85.
February 4, 2021
The Iowa men’s basketball team went three minutes and 41 seconds without scoring a basket late in its loss to Ohio State on Thursday. But the game was lost before that.
The No. 8 Hawkeyes blew an 11-point second-half lead to the No. 7 Buckeyes and fell 89-85 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
“The game was lost when we lost the 11-point lead,” Iowa point guard Jordan Bohannon said postgame. “It wasn’t lost at the end of the game. They went on a run against us and we didn’t respond and win.”
Iowa (13-5 overall, 7-4 Big Ten) has lost three of its last four games and now sits in fourth place in the Big Ten, two games out of first place. Ohio State (15-4, 9-4) had already won five-straight games against top-10 opponents entering Thursday’s contest, but it didn’t look like the Buckeyes were going to get out of Carver with a victory over the Hawkeyes.
After a competitive first half, which ended with Iowa leading by three points, the Hawkeyes quickly established command of the second half. By the 14:29 mark of the second half, Iowa center Luka Garza had just made a 3-pointer after an Ohio State turnover and the Hawkeyes led by 11.
Then, similar to how the team’s bus had finally gotten out of the snow before the game after it had stalled in the storm that had blanketed Iowa City in white, Ohio State’s shooters got going.
And Iowa’s perimeter defense couldn’t keep up.
Ohio State guard Duane Washington Jr. hit two 3-pointers in a 20-second span, the second of which dropped Iowa’s lead to four points. Three minutes later, Buckeye guard Eugene Brown hit a shot from deep of his own to bring Ohio State to within one.
On their next trip down the court, the Buckeyes took the lead with a Kyle Young jump shot with 10 minutes and 12 seconds remaining in the game.
Bohannon and Iowa guard Joe Wieskamp played almost the entire second half, leaving guards Joe Toussaint and Tony Perkins — two of the team’s top defensive players — on the bench. Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said postgame he wanted to leave his veteran players on the floor in the top-10 matchup, but in hindsight would have rested them and given his bench players more minutes.
Iowa was also without guard C.J. Fredrick for the second time in three games because of a lower leg injury. McCaffery said Fredrick remains day-to-day.
Ohio State and Iowa briefly traded the lead over the next few minutes of game time, but a second-chance layup by Washington Jr. at the 8:44 mark put the Buckeyes up for good.
“During that stretch, they got more stops than us and they were knocking down open shots,” Iowa forward Jack Nunge said. “We can’t get casual on offense. When we get a lead, that’s when we have to bury them.”
Nunge and Bohannon tied for the Iowa lead with 18 points each. Wieskamp added 17 points and 10 rebounds, and Garza scored 16 points despite shooting 2-of-8 from the field in the second half. Iowa’s offense was good. Ohio State’s was just better.
The Buckeyes shot 8-for-17 from deep in the second half. And they made the clutch plays down the stretch, which the Hawkeyes did not.
Ohio State extended its lead out to seven with two minutes and 39 seconds remaining. Both teams ended the game 14-of-32 from 3-point range. But the Hawkeyes didn’t convert from distance in the final seconds.
Iowa brought the game to within four points and had the ball with 17 seconds left, but the Hawkeyes airballed three shots in one possession to hand the Buckeyes the win.
Blowing second-half leads, struggling defensively on the perimeter, dropping close games to ranked teams — all are startling themes for Iowa at this point in its down stretch.
Themes the Hawkeyes are trying to address.
“There are too many mistakes that we keep having,” Wieskamp said. “We talk about them in film, but it needs to translate over to the games better… We need to take that game plan and execute it for the full 40 minutes and not stretches throughout the game.”
