The Iowa men’s basketball team dropped its final home game of the season to No. 12 Illinois, 73-61, at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday.
Only two players for the Hawkeyes scored in double digits on Senior Night. Forward Payton Sandfort notched 23 points and seven rebounds while guard Josh Dix scored 13 points and four rebounds. While the Ilini committed 12 turnovers, they were dominant on the glass, outrebounding the Hawkeyes, 52-38.
Iowa finished the regular season at 18-13 overall and 10-10 in conference play and will have the seventh seed in the Big Ten tournament next week.
Both teams got off to a rocky start, combining for 1-of-11 shooting from the floor through the first three minutes of the game. Iowa remained scoreless for nearly three more minutes before Payton Sandfort’s mid-range floater at the 15:15 mark ended the team’s 0-of-10 start from the field.
Illinois continued to roll out as it held a 21-4 lead a little over eight minutes into the ballgame. The Fighting Illini extended the lead to 21 points with just over nine minutes remaining in the first half as the Hawkeye struggles carried on.
“We had good shots, it wasn’t like I was going to criticize anybody for the shots we were taking,” Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said of the team’s early deficit. “We were taking good shots, we were moving the ball. It was just frustrating for everybody.”
But Iowa eventually found its footing with Brock Harding leading the charge, going on a 16-3 run over the next six minutes to quickly cut the Illinois lead down to 33-25. The first-year guard was responsible for 15 of the team’s 21 points since he checked in at the 11:50 mark.
Brock Harding can pass the rock. 😲@hardingbrock2 x @IowaHoops
📺: FS1/@CBBonFOX pic.twitter.com/clwjHBnkLW
— Big Ten Men's Basketball (@B1GMBBall) March 10, 2024
The last three minutes were a back-and-forth fight between the two opponents as Illinois held a 39-29 lead heading into the break.
The game picked up where it left off to start the second half with Illinois and Iowa trading buckets. But it was Iowa that started to pull away with some momentum as a Sandfort corner three and a Josh Dix contested layup at the rim trimmed the lead down to five just six minutes into the second half. The triple secured 1,000 career points for Sandfort.
The shot that made it 1,000 for Mr. Sandfort 💸@payton_20_ x #Hawkeyes
pic.twitter.com/NHboIaQXy4— Iowa Men’s Basketball (@IowaHoops) March 11, 2024
After holding Illinois to 2-of-11 shooting over five minutes, the Illini scored on four straight possessions to grasp a 12-point lead. That lead was sliced in half after a pair of Sandfort pull-up threes on the fast break set the score at 59-53 with 6:46 remaining on the clock.
Illinois’ bruising force inside the paint along with multiple mental mistakes by Iowa saw that six-point deficit extend to a 13-point deficit in just over a minute. The sold-out home crowd could only watch as Iowa’s NCAA Tournament hopes took a brutal hit.
“We’ve had our backs against the wall pretty much since early December,” Sandfort said, reflecting on the team’s season. “We’ve never quit, we’ve never given up, and that’s why we were in the position we were in with a week left. I don’t see why you change that now.”
“This Iowa team, in my opinion, is NCAA [Tournament] worthy and should be in the dance,” Illinois head coach Brad Underwood spoke of the Hawkeyes postgame. “[They’re] as good of a team offensively as there is out there.”
Up Next
Iowa will head up to Target Center in Minneapolis to take on tenth-seeded Ohio State at 5:30 p.m. Central Time on Thursday. The Hawkeyes previously topped the Buckeyes, 79-77, back at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Feb. 2. Less than two weeks later, the team fired its head coach, Chris Holtmann. Since then, under interim Jake Diebler, Ohio State has won five of its last six games, including an upset over then-No. 3 Purdue in Columbus.
Ohio State finished the season 19-12 overall with a 9-11 mark in conference play.
