While the 84-70 final score between Iowa men’s basketball and No. 2 Purdue Saturday may reflect a lopsided defeat, the contest was far from easy for the victorious Boilermakers. Just take it from Purdue head coach Matt Painter in his postgame press conference:
“They spread you out, they attack you. It’s hard,” Painter said of the Hawkeyes. “I told our team [we’re] not seeing the same Iowa team that we saw earlier in the year. That’s a human nature thing because we had a pretty substantial victory in that game.”
That game in question occurred back on Dec. 4, 2023, when Purdue played host at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, earning a resounding 87-68 triumph over Iowa. Both that matchup and the one Saturday featured similar statistics – such as Purdue with double-digit advantages in rebounds and points in the paint – but this time around, Iowa made things interesting.
Iowa held an 18-17 lead eight minutes into the game before Purdue dominated its way to taking a 13-point lead heading into halftime. The Boilermakers continued to roll out of the break, extending their lead as far as 19 points.
With 13 minutes to go in the game, the Hawkeyes fought rather than surrendered, clawing their way back to cut the Purdue lead to 10 with five minutes to go in the game.
Iowa second-year guard Josh Dix came up with a late steal and got fouled going to the cup. He knocked down both free throws as Purdue held its shortest lead of the second half, 78-70, with 4:22 left to go.
With one of the biggest upsets of the year on the line, the Hawkeyes failed to get the job done. Senior forward Payton Sandfort missed two crucial threes – one being wide open off a flare screen – while Purdue continued to dominate the offensive glass and shoot the game away. Iowa was held scoreless and was outrebounded, 8-2, after the Dix free throws.
“Sandfort got away from of us a couple of times, and we’re very fortunate he missed a couple of those threes,” Painter said. “You’ve seen how he single-handedly in those situations, can get it rolling and make it pretty difficult.”
Four Iowa players – Dix, Ben Krikke, Tony Perkins, and Payton Sandfort – played at least 32 minutes in this game. Head coach Fran McCaffery took the blame for the late struggles, stressing fatigue and lack of adjustments.
“[The late game fatigue], you know, that’s on me,” McCaffery said postgame. “I probably should have played some of my bench a little more. It was kind of a constant struggle to cut into the lead and when we started doing it, I kept those guys out on the floor.”
Despite this, McCaffery was satisfied with his team’s execution down the stretch.
“I thought we had pretty decent shots [late in the game],” McCaffery said. “We ran a play incorrectly and that was unfortunate, but I still think we got a good shot and we were moving the ball … We had the right guys shooting ball.”
Though Purdue completed the season sweep, Perkins sees the improvement, as evidenced by hanging in the whole way against the No. 2 team in the nation.
“When we played there, we didn’t do too good,” Perkins said of the prior matchup.”But ever since then, we lost a few but jumped back, [winning three] in a row in the conference,” Perkins said. “This loss will also give us a boost of wanting to keep building off that.”
“They’re going to keep getting better, right?” Painter said of the Hawkeyes. “You want more. There’s not a fan base in the country who doesn’t want more, no matter what you’re record is or whatever. People want more from you and that’s OK because we’re all competitive.”