Indiana ruins Iowa’s Senior Day; wins Big Ten title outright
IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa men’s basketball team isn’t just losing games anymore.
Each loss now comes with a heavy price.
The Hawkeyes (20-9, 11-6 Big Ten) were eliminated from the Big Ten regular-season title race on Tuesday, losing 81-78 to Indiana, which captured the Big Ten title outright with the victory.
Iowa had been in first place during the entire first half of the conference schedule, and had climbed to as high as third in the national polls, only to unravel down the stretch.
Iowa has lost four games in a row and five of its last six games and will close the regular season under difficult circumstances, facing Michigan on Saturday in Ann Arbor, Mich.
"It sucks to lose," said Iowa senior center Adam Woodbury. "I don’t know what other way to put it, no politically correct way.
"We’ve just got to be better tomorrow and continue to get better."
Adding to the misery is that Tuesday’s loss came on Senior Day. Woodbury and fellow seniors Jarrod Uthoff, Mike Gesell, Anthony Clemmons and walk-on Okey Ukah never will play at Carver-Hawkeye Arena again.
Each of the five seniors was honored before the game in an emotional ceremony at mid-court. The sellout crowd of 15,400 was energized when the the game started, even more so after Iowa had erased a 14-point deficit in the second half.
The Hawkeyes had a chance to send the game into overtime, but Peter Jok’s 3-point attempt from the right baseline bounced off the rim.
Iowa also had a chance to tie the score a few seconds earlier, but Clemmons’ 3-point shot fell short of the basket. Woodbury grabbed the rebound and immediately called timeout with 2.1 seconds left to play.
That set the stage for Jok, but like so many of Iowa’s shots in crunch time lately, his was off target.
"A really smart play by Woodbury there," said Iowa coach Fran McCaffery. A lot of guys grab it, lay it in. That was one second to go and down one, you have no chance.
"So we had another clean look at the three. Pete did a great job getting open."
McCaffery was surprisingly upbeat after Tuesday’s loss, as were most of the Iowa players except Woodbury.
"Not me," Woodbury said. "I hate to lose. Never like to lose."
McCaffery was asked how confident he was that Iowa could turn things around.
"I think we already have," he said. "So I’m not worried about that at all."
The reporter then asked McCaffery what he meant by that.
"We played well," McCaffery said. "I mean, we lost to a really, really good team."
It wasn’t that long ago when Iowa was considered a really, really good team. Now it’s hard to know what to think of an Iowa team that supposedly has turned the corner after suffering a fourth consecutive loss.
The current skid is bringing back memories of two seasons ago when Iowa climbed to as high as 10th in the polls before unraveling down the stretch, losing seven of the final eight games.
"The difference was we didn’t make adjustments back then," Clemmons said of the slump in 2014. "Now I think we just made a huge jump. I was on our guys telling them to keep our heads up."
Iowa’s much-maligned bench made a huge jump during Tuesday’s game by outscoring Indiana’s bench, 27-19. It was in contrast to the first game against Indiana on Feb. 11 when Iowa’s bench was outscored 28-0 during an 85-78 loss in Bloomington, Ind.
Freshman forward Ahmad Wagner scored a career-high 11 points off the bench, while seldom-used freshman guard Christian Williams finished with career-high eight points, all of which came in the first half.
Wagner played well despite still being sore after landing awkwardly in last Saturday’s 68-64 loss at Ohio State.
Redshirt freshman forward Nicholas Baer also made a huge impact by draining two 3-point baskets during the second half comeback, which saw Iowa turn a 14-point deficit into a 74-72 lead with 4 minutes 34 seconds left to play.
Sophomore Dom Uhl only scored two points off the bench, but he also grabbed three rebounds and was active on defense.
"I’m so proud of those guys," McCaffery said of his bench. "Ahmad was struggling yesterday walking around. He said, coach, I’ll be ready. He was fabulous. Baer was great, Christian Williams was great. I thought Dom Uhl’s energy level, though he doesn’t have a lot to show for with the stats, I thought he really gave us great effort."
The 6-foot-6 Williams only had played a total of 66 minutes and scored just 11 points heading into Tuesday’s game. He said after the game that Iowa assistant coaches Kirk Speraw and Andrew Francis had been preparing him for a situation like Tuesday.
"Throughout this whole process coach Speraw and coach Francis they just told me to stay ready and just trust the process and just trust my talents," Williams said. "And that’s pretty much what I did tonight. They told me it’s just basketball and just go out there and play. And that’s what I just kind of did."
And yet, Iowa still lost, even with the bench performing well. The Hawkeyes also had a 42-39 advantage on the boards and finished with nearly twice as many assists (16) as turnovers (9).
"We executed all of our plays, all of our late-game stuff," McCaffery said. "It was frustrating because we had really good looks that didn’t go in. But what you want to be able to do is make sure all five guys are where they’re supposed to be executing. And I was really proud of them for that."
Uthoff also saw reason to be optimistic after Tuesday’s loss, which is unusual for him. He is usually distraught after losses and says very little.
"I thought we showed way more toughness in this game, especially with us fighting back from a 14-point deficit," said Uthoff, who only made 5-of-17 field-goal attempts in Tuesday’s game. "There is a positive to take away from that. But it doesn’t hurt any less."
Indiana torched Iowa from 3-point range, making 11-of-22 attempts, including 8-of-11 in the first half. The Hoosiers have combined to make 20 3-point baskets in two games against Iowa this season.
Iowa made eight 3-point baskets in Tuesday’s game. But take away Baer’s two treys that came during the comeback and none of Iowa’s 3-pointers were of the clutch variety.
The inability to make clutch shots is arguably Iowa’s biggest weakness right now. That’s part mental and part physical.
There were times in Tuesday’s game, especially late in the second half, when McCaffery seemed to be pleading with his guards to start running a play in a half-court set. Iowa did too much stationary dribbling down the stretch.
But that’s what happens when you can’t make shots.
The challenge now is to stay motivated and focused on the next task. The goal of winning at least a share of the the Big Ten regular-season title for the first time since 1979 is now beyond Iowa’s reach.
It had to be agonizing for Iowa fans to watch the Indiana players celebrate winning the conference title outright, considering Iowa hasn’t done that since 1970.
That’s part of the reason the current skid hurts so much. Iowa was poised to make history, but now the Hawkeyes are making a mess of things and are in danger of being seeded as low as seventh in the Big Ten Tournament if they lose at Michigan on Saturday.
"The season is not over," Woodbury said. "We’re not going to quit."
At this rate, though, the season will be over sooner than many had expected.