For a team that has been highly consistent on both offense and defense all season thus far, the Iowa men’s basketball team took a step back from that in the Maryland loss on Wednesday. The Hawkeyes’ lifeless defense along with its stagnant offense was the perfect recipe for the Terrapins to squeak by.
Ben McCollum’s mind immediately went to defense at first – his team allowed several drives through open gaps. And then he turned to the offense.
“[I] thought our offense, sometimes, can get stuck,” the Iowa head coach said. “We have to keep moving, and the ball has to keep popping. And [we] have to be able to get to action… to be able to leverage the defense, which I thought for quick spans we did, and then it gets stalled out a little bit too much. And so we just have to be better with that.”
Iowa nailed 25 field goals throughout the course of the game, to which Bennett Stirtz had 13 of those makes en route to 32 points – his third 30-point game in the month of February. Tavion Banks, Cam Manyawu, and Brendan Hausen owned 10 of the remaining 12 made shots.
Hausen played 14 minutes against Maryland, marking his second-highest total in the last three weeks behind his 16-minute mark in the win over Oregon on Feb. 1. The reason for that wasn’t because of his shooting prowess, but more of his energy and knowledge of the opponent.
“Just a testament to my work, just staying ready every single day, doing whatever the team needs me to do,” Hausen said. ” I just want to be ready for whatever the game calls, whatever the coach needs. That’s my role.”
The sharpshooter continues to earn trust within this first-year squad. A team in dire need of long-range gunners, his skillset is unique, especially when he’s one of the few guys that doesn’t need a setup from Stirtz to get a shot off. Defense will be the determining factor to how much playing time Hausen gets moving forward.
McCollum has to pick his poison with that decision.
“I appreciate that [the team] allowing [Stirtz] to do what he needs to do, but they’re pretty good players, and so they need to go do something as well,” McCollum said. “There’s a gravity that is created by certain players, and so you want to maintain that gravity… Sometimes we can involve the gravity not enough, and then sometimes we can involve too much, and then it just gets stuck in money. You want to find that fine line.”
Scouting Purdue
It’ll be a month ago to the day when Iowa fell short of upsetting then-No. 5 Purdue at Mackey Arena, 79-72. There wasn’t many mistakes made by the Hawkeyes, rather than the Boilermakers playing up to its rank.
Purdue went through a three-game losing streak towards the end of January and have dropped to 13th overall since. Despite that, its size, typically playing two bigs standing at least 6-foot-9, will pose as an issue once again, and the passing prowess of All-American guard Breden Smith puts those bigs in position to dominate inside.
“We have to be more physical than them and come out with the right mentality,” Manyawu said.”I think the last couple of games are getting up a lot of offensive boards, and so there is definitely a big emphasis of boxing out.”
And unlike last time, the stadium will feature a pro-Iowa sold-out crowd – the first of the Ben McCollum era – pushing its team to pull off what could be a season-defying upset.
“It shows to all the work that we put in on and off the court,” Manyawu said. “And it’s just super exciting to have a big game tomorrow and then have all the fans coming out and just knowing that you kind of have them at your back.”
Tipoff is set for 4 p.m. CT on Saturday, Feb. 14, at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.