By Pat Harty

Just up the road and approximately 48 hours after the Iowa football team fell way short in its attempt to upset Michigan in the Big Ten Championship, the Iowa men’s basketball team met a similar fate against fourth-ranked Purdue.

Both games were played in the state of Indiana, but the Iowa men’s basketball team didn’t have the luxury of playing at a neutral site as was the case with football.

Fran McCaffery’s squad faced fourth-ranked Purdue at sold-out Mackey Arena where visiting teams hardly win, and that was certainly the case on Monday as the Boilermakers cruised to a 87-68 victory.

Purdue led 45-24 at halftime.

Fran McCaffery was called for a technical foul with Iowa trailing 23-14 in the first half. His emotional outbursts have provided a spark in previous games, but that wasn’t the case in Monday’s game.

Purdue would go on to build a 35-point lead in the second half and has now defeated Iowa six straight times at Mackey Arena.

Purdue was coming off a 92-88 overtime loss at Northwestern this past Friday, which cost it the No. 1 ranking. So it seemed likely that the Purdue players would be locked in and ready to defend their homecourt, and that is certainly what they did in dominating fashion.

Iowa averages 90 points per game, so Purdue, obviously, met the challenge defensively, holding Iowa more than 20 points below its per-game scoring average.

Iowa (5-3, 0-1) now has to regroup quickly with a game at Iowa State up next on Thursday, followed by a home game against Michigan on Sunday.

And though it’s only three games in one week, these three games will give a glimpse of where this Iowa team is right now.

But one thing is certain, it was nowhere close to being in Purdue’s class on Monday.

Iowa has fallen behind many times before at Purdue under Fran McCaffery, but then made runs to at least give itself a chance to win down the stretch.

There were no significant runs in the second half of Monday’s game.

Zach Edey, Purdue’s 7-foot-4 All-America center showed why he is considered by many the most dominate college player in the nation as he scored 25 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.

Purdue shot 52.3 percent from the field and only committed eight turnovers, while its defense never let Iowa control the tempo.

“It helps when you make shots,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said on the Big Ten Network post-game interview.

Iowa wants to run and score in transition under Fran McCaffery, but Purdue didn’t allow that to happen.

Fran McCaffery acknowledged Edey’s enormous impact, but McCaffery also praised Purdue for its performance as a team, which included five players scoring in double figures..

“Yeah, he’s difficult,” McCaffery said of Edey. “But I think you have to give credit to rest of the guys that were out there for them. They really executed tonight in terms of screening and cutting and ball movement.

“What makes it really hard is if you’re trying to focus on him, they’re not a one-man show at all. They have shooters. They have drivers. They have size.”

Graduate transfer forward Ben Krikke led Iowa with 16 points followed by senior guard Tony Perkins with 12 points.

They were the only players for Iowa to score in double figures, another sign of Purdue’s defensive dominance.