By Dallas Jones

IOWA CITY, IOWA – The Iowa Hawkeyes (16-12, 8-9) hosted the Penn State Nittany Lions (14-14, 8-9) in what many would call a must win game. Not only for the NCAA tournament looming in March, but also seeding purposes in the Big Ten conference tournament.

Iowa and Penn State are dead locked at 8-9 in the conference and a win would put them within reach of a possible top four seed in the conference.

Thankfully for the Hawkeyes, Payton Sandfort played the best game of his career and led them to victory with not only a triple double, but also knocking down a career high 18 (!!) free throws.

1st half: You could not draw up a better start to the game for the Hawkeyes. By the first timeout five minutes into the game, the Hawkeyes had already built a 14-4 lead over the Nittany Lions. Iowa started the game 5/7 from the field with zero turnovers, while Penn State was 2/7 with three turnovers at that time.

Josh Dix came to play Tuesday night as he  started the game with 18 points on 7/8 from the field and 2/3 from three all in the first half.

He can thank Payton Sandfort for some of those shots as he set his career high for assists in a game in the first half alone with eight.

The entire Hawkeye offense was clicking in the first 20 minutes. Iowa shot 16/32 from the field and 5/9 from three. A lot of that efficiency can be attributed to the Hawkeyes 15 assists on 16 made shots in the first half. Sharing is caring.

2nd half: The Hawkeyes look like they take control of this game coming out of the break, but Penn State has other plans. They quickly cut the lead to just two points less than two minutes into the half, then Fran McCaffery switched to a smaller lineup that sparked a run.

Led by Payton Sandfort, the Hawkeyes forced a three plus minute scoring drought from Penn State and helped Iowa build lead back up to ten.

That lead then grew up to 15, but then the Hawkeyes hit a wall.

That lull came once they scored their 79th point at the 8:05 remaining mark. After more than six minutes passed by, with 1:55 left they had 82 points.

In spite of this, they strung togetehr enough stops and made enough free throws to bring home the win.

This has been an ongoing issue for the Hawkeyes late in games. It did not cost them tonight, but they will need to sure these things up as March approaches.

Next up, a trip to Evanston to face Northwestern Saturday. Everything postgame from the team and visiting coach here: