INDIANAPOLIS — The Iowa men’s basketball team defeated Wisconsin, 62-57, Friday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals to advance to the next round of the conference tournament.

The No. 3-seed Hawkeyes held the No. 6-seed Badgers without a basket for over nine minutes in the second half to advance to the Big Ten semifinals for the first time in 15 years.

Wisconsin hit only three of its final 15 shot attempts from the field to end the game. This is the third time Iowa (21-7 overall, 15-6 Big Ten) has defeated Wisconsin (17-12, 11-11) this season. Iowa has now won eight of its past nine games.

Luka Garza scored 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting to lead the Hawkeyes. The senior also tallied nine rebounds and four blocked shots.

Iowa trailed by six points at halftime, but outscored Wisconsin by 11 points in the second half for the victory. In many ways, the final 20 minutes of play were much cleaner for the Hawkeyes. Iowa committed eight turnovers in the first half, but none in the second half. The Hawkeyes also held the Badgers to 30.8 percent shooting in the second half after they hit 45.2 of their shots in the first half.

For the first time this season, Iowa played in front of fans. A loud “Let’s go Hawks” could be heard booming from the concourse as Hawkeye fans exited the arena after the victory.

Joe Wieskamp looks sharp in return to the floor

Iowa guard Joe Wieskamp was day-to-day heading into Friday night’s contest after suffering an ankle injury in the team’s regular-season finale on March 7.

Hours before tip off against Wisconsin, the team announce Wieskamp would play. The Muscatine, Iowa, native started and tallied 10 points and seven rebounds.

And Wieskamp played his best in the final moments.

With three minutes remaining, Wieskamp hit a jumper to put Iowa up two points. Only seconds later, another Wieskamp bucket had the Hawkeyes on top by four points. One of Iowa’s 10 blocked shots on the night was courtesy of Wieskamp with 20 seconds to play when he rejected one of Wisconsin’s final attempts to get back in the game.

Despite the victory, Hawkeyes are cold from the floor

The Hawkeyes won despite an uncharacteristically bad night from beyond the arc.

Iowa shot 2-of-20 from 3-point range. Jordan Bohannon and CJ Fredrick were the only Iowa players to convert on 3-point attempts, both of them doing so once. At halftime, the Hawkeyes were 0-of-10 from 3-point range.

The Badgers actually held the advantage in this category, hitting seven of 17 (41 percent) shots from deep. The Hawkeyes scored 77 points in both of their first two victories over Wisconsin this season. In a poor shooting performance, only 62 points were enough for the Hawkeyes this time around.

Up next

Iowa finally gets its rematch with second-seeded Illinois Saturday afternoon in the Big Ten semifinals.

The Illini defeated the Hawkeyes 80-75 in Champaign in the only regular-season meeting between the teams. The rematch will tip off 25 minutes after the Ohio State-Michigan game, which starts at noon CT.

The game will air on the Big Ten Network. Follow along at dailyiowan.com for coverage.