It nearly turned into a disastrous loss, but the Iowa men’s basketball team saw its three-game losing streak come to a nail-biting end, defeating the Penn State Nittany Lions 76-75 on Friday evening.
The Hawkeyes had a comfortable 10-point lead for most of the second half, but a 3:30 minute scoring drought and poor free-throw shooting nearly doomed Iowa on its home floor for the second consecutive game. But as the saying goes, “a win is a win,” and this much-needed triumph improved the Hawkeyes to 13-7 overall and 4-5 in league play.
“We’ve stayed together, and I kind of talked about after last game, but we got a good group,” fourth-year forward Payton Sandfort. “And once you get one, then you can kind of get some confidence rolling and shots start falling, and things will start going right. So it’s always important to get the first one. And no matter how you do it, as ugly as it was, you got to find a way. And we did that.”
Fifth-year guard Drew Thelwell and second-year center Owen Freeman each recorded a team-high 16 points, while third-year guard Josh Dix followed closely behind with 11 points and eight assists.
The Hawkeyes went only 3-for-21 from three-point range during Tuesday’s loss against Minnesota, but Thelwell promptly put an end to those woes and rattled in Iowa’s first triple of the contest.
There weren’t many whistles in the first few minutes, as both teams frantically glided up and down the court with ease, scoring early and often in transition. The fast pace of play delayed the first media timeout until the 12:30 mark, but Iowa maintained a slight 19-16 edge.
Penn State continued to punch back for a couple minutes, but the Hawkeyes began to build a comfortable 30-23 cushion thanks to a stellar performance from second-year center Owen Freeman. The Nittany Lions had no answer for Freeman’s presence down low, allowing the sophomore to rack up 11 points in the frame.
Penn State responded with a brief run, but Iowa closed out the half strong due to some tough minutes from third-year Riley Mulvey and Thelwell, who collected eight points in the period, and the Hawkeyes led 43-38 at the break.
Drew Thelwell with the steal and SLAM
@IowaHoops up at the half, 43-38.
#B1GMBBall on FS1pic.twitter.com/Y4JDAvmCk0
— Big Ten Men’s Basketball (@B1GMBBall) January 25, 2025
“It was great crowd. They brought a lot of energy,” Thelwell said after the game.
Second Half
The second half quickly turned into a back-and-forth affair, as both squads traded buckets while also missing some easy ones in the process. But it was Iowa who began to seize the momentum thanks to a few emphatic dunks from second-year forward Seydou Traore and Freeman.
Traore’s jam came on a perfectly executed out-of-bounds play, while Freeman had to corral a tough pass from Traore and fight through a Lions defender for his. Both plays propelled the Hawkeye faithful to their feet, and the Hawks quickly soared to a nine-point lead at the halfway point of the period.
HEY NOW SEY
@iamseydou35 x #Hawkeyes
— Iowa Men’s Basketball (@IowaHoops) January 25, 2025
But Penn State wouldn’t go down quietly, answering nearly every Iowa bucket with a three-pointer of its own to stay within striking range. A Zach Hicks triple cut the Hawkeye lead down to six, and it turned into a dogfight from there.
A couple of controversial foul calls annoyed the Iowa coaching staff and its fans, but a pair of missed free throws from Brock Harding opened the door for the Nittany Lions, who knocked in a pair of free throws on the other end to slice the deficit to one.
“I thought we played really hard,” head coach Fran McCaffery said. “I thought we had some consistency defensively, not an easy team to guard.”
More missed foul shots from the Hawkeyes gave Penn State one final look at the buzzer, but the Nittany Lions couldn’t get the shot off in time, and Iowa’s three-game losing streak was saved by the bell.
Up next
The Hawkeyes return to action on Jan. 27 for a road contest against Ohio State, who is 11-8 overall and 3-5 in Big Ten play. The Buckeyes will enter the matchup with a lot of momentum after pulling off a shocking upset victory at No. 11 Purdue on Jan. 21.
Guard Bruce Thornton leads Ohio State in scoring with 17.1 points per game while shooting at a 52 percent clip from the floor.
“There’s a ton of huge games left, and we got to be ready for battle,” Sandfort said.
Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. Central Time on FS1.