Iowa men ice cold from three in 79-67 loss to Oklahoma in San Diego
The 3-point shot can be a team’s best friend or worst enemy.
For the Iowa men’s basketball team, it was the latter against Oklahoma on Thursday in the Rady Children’s Invitational in San Diego.
Iowa only made 4-of-23 shots from 3-point range and was held 28 points below its season scoring average in the 79-67 loss.
Three of Iowa’s four treys came late in the game when the outcome was all but decided.
The Sooners weren’t much better from 3-point range, making just 4-of-20 attempts, but they controlled the tempo throughout the game, had eight steals and only committed eight turnovers.
“The first 37 minutes, I thought the guys played hard,” Oklahoma head coach Porter Moser said on the FS1 post-game interview. “Iowa is really hard to guard. I’ve got so much respect for their motion, their skill level and how well they’re coached.
“But I thought we got back in transition D, which is a key for us. And I didn’t think we broke on their motion. I think we did a couple times, obviously. But I thought for the most part, we guarded the 3-point line until the last three minutes. And I thought we really played hard possession by possession.”
Iowa fell to 3-2, while the Sooners improved to 5-0 in Moser’s third season as head coach.
Iowa will play Seton Hall in the consolation game at 5 p.m. on Friday. Seton Hall lost to USC 71-63 in the other semifinal on Thursday.
Oklahoma built a double-digit lead in the first half, and Iowa never made a serious run the rest of the way.
Freshman forward Owen Freeman led three Iowa players in double figure with 13 points, while junior forward Payton Sandford scored 12 points and graduate transfer forward Ben Krikke finished with 11, which is nine below his average.
Senior guard Perkins was held to just six points on 1-of-10 shooting from the fiekld.
Iowa trailed 36-24 at halftime after having missed all 13 attempts from 3-point range, and after shooting just 29.4 percent from the field.
Perkins and fellow starting guard Dasonte Bown were a combined 1-of-9 from the field in the first half, and the second half was more of the same against an Oklahoma squad that was picked to finished 12th in the Big 12 Conference.