Iowa basketball team gets blown out 90-70 by Ohio State
By Tyler Devine
IOWA CITY, Iowa – There was no chance for the usual late-game magic for the Iowa men's basketball team in Tuesday's loss at Ohio State.
The Buckeyes turned a 36-33 halftime lead into a convincing 90-70 victory at Value City Arena in Columbus.
Iowa's lone bright spot was freshman forward Joe Wieskamp, who scored a team-high 17 points, with all but two of his points coming from beyond the three-point arc.
Iowa looked disjointed on both ends of the floor, particularly on defense, where it allowed Ohio State to shoot over 48 percent from the field, including 12 made three-point baskets.
Iowa jumped out to an early 7-0 lead, but Ohio State quickly answered with its own 7-0 scoring run and then never really let up.
"We got off to a good start," Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said during his Learfield post-game radio interview. "And that was a focal point because we had not won the first four minutes the last four or five, maybe five or six games. So at least it was even, it was 7-7. At the start of the second half, we haven't been good there either, and we weren't tonight."
Ohio State clung to a 22-18 lead when Kaleb Wesson was called for his second personal foul.
Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann was subsequently called for a technical foul after disputing the call, catapulting Iowa to a 13-3 run to take a 31-25 lead with 3:47 left in the half.
However, the momentum swung back in Ohio State’s favor for good after senior forward Nicholas Baer was called for a flagrant foul after wrapping up Ohio State’s Justin Ahren’s on a fast break.
The Buckeyes came out firing in the second half, storming to a 51-42 lead at the under-16 minute timeout.
In the blink of an eye, Ohio State held a 74-56 lead with just over eight minutes to play.
Iowa pulled within 11 points late in the second half but freshman guard Connor McCaffery and his father, Fran McCaffery, were each slapped with technical fouls within seconds of each other, allowing Ohio State to expand its lead to 15 at 84-69.
Fran McCaffery said despite the frustration with how the game transpired, his team now must move on to its senior day matchup with Rutgers in Iowa City on Saturday afternoon.
"It's one game," Fran McCaffery said. "If you win it, it's great, if you lost it it's not. We didn't play well. It was a strange game in a lot of ways. Obviously, we weren't happy with a lot of things that took place in this game, at all, but you've got to be able to overcome that on road and play a little bit better than we played."
Iowa fell to 10-7 in Big Ten play and 21-7 overall.