Iowa men get pounded in Big Ten opener at Purdue
By Pat Harty
Life on the road in the Big Ten can be difficult for even the best men’s basketball teams.
But for a young and inexperienced team like Iowa, it can be brutal.
That was the case on Wednesday as No. 15 Purdue led Iowa from start to finish while rolling to an 89-67 victory in the Big Ten opener for both teams at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind.
Purdue bolted to an 8-0 lead, with guard Carson Edwards scoring all eight points, and led 13-4 at the first media timeout with 15 minutes, 46 seconds left in the first half.
The lead swelled to 49-25 at halftime and to 31 points in the second half as Iowa offered little resistance against one of the preseason conference favorites.
“Our offense was sideways from the beginning, I thought,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said on his post-game radio show. “We didn’t get a lot of clean looks. And then when they jumped us, we started quick shooting the ball and you just can’t do that on the road. You can’t try to get it all back at once.”
“Purdue was favored by 12.5 points heading into Wednesday’s game, and now we see why.
Iowa (8-6) couldn’t emulate Purdue’s enormous size in practice, so it was hard for the Iowa freshmen, which included power forward Tyler Cook for the first time since late November, to fully understand what to expect until Wednesday’s game started.
Unfortunately, for the Iowa players, the game was over almost as soon as it started. And oddly enough, Purdue’s two massive and celebrated frontline players – 6-foot-9 power forward Caleb Swanigan and 7-2 center Isaac Haas – had little to do with the early surge.
Purdue made 10-of-17 3-point shots in the first half, while Iowa senior guard Peter Jok only made 1-of-6 field-goal attempts in the first half and had three turnovers by halftime.
Iowa used a three-quarter press to rattle Purdue’s guards last season while completing a season sweep.
But that was a different Iowa team with two hardened seniors (Mike Gesell and Anthony Clemmons) playing alongside Jok in the backcourt.
On Wednesday, Jok had freshmen and sophomores playing alongside him in the backcourt, and the inexperience showed.
“We weren’t getting to the three-point shooter on time,” McCaffery said. “We were close. But they took seventeen threes in the first half and thirteen of them were open, and they made ten. Sometimes you get lucky and they rim them in and out a little bit. This team has too many weapons.”
Iowa entered Wednesday's game riding high with a five-game winning streak, but also with questions and concerns. The previous five opponents hardly were pushovers, especially Iowa State, but they weren't as talented or as big as Purdue.
The same reason why you shouldn’t have anointed any of Iowa’s freshmen as future stars during the five-game winning streak is the same reason you shouldn’t assume the worst in the wake of Wednesday’s thrashing.
Iowa performed woefully against Purdue, but that doesn’t mean that Jok and his cohorts can’t rebound to defeat Michigan on Sunday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The freshmen now have one conference game under their belt and Cook finally is healthy again. He was in foul trouble against Purdue, which probably shouldn't come as a surprise. But Cook also showed flashes while scoring 12 points.
With Iowa having such a young and inexperienced roster, this season will be filled with peaks and valleys as McCaffery tries to find the right combinations.
Wednesday’s drubbing was a valley, and might prove to be one of the deepest valleys.
The Iowa players can take solace in knowing that there won’t be many tougher road trips than playing at Purdue, if any. The Boilermakers landed an early blow, causing Iowa to stagger and never to recover.
The Iowa players now have to get off the canvas and move on because the Big Ten grind shows no mercy. The challenge is to not let one loss linger and turn into two losses.
It probably is too early to call the Michigan game a must win, but the last thing Iowa needs is to be 0-2 heading into a game at Nebraska, which won at Indiana on Wednesday.
“We’ve got to flush this one and get ready for that one and we’ve got to play together offensively and defensively and fifth and manage the game a little bit better,” McCaffery