By Dallas Jones

MOLINE, ILLINOIS – Homecoming for sophomores Owen Freeman and Brock Harding Friday night as the Hawkeyes fought hard for their ten point win over Washington State. A great birthday present for Freeman, who celebrated his 20th birthday today.

Tonight’s game was Iowa’s first in the Quad Cities in 26 years, a 74-63 win over Western Illinois in 1998.

1st half: The energy of the crowd in Vibrant Arena was high and the Hawks came out fast, knocking down four of their first seven shots. Washington State was not afraid to match that energy as they were tied at nine when the first timeout came.

Iowa had a scoreless streak for almost four minutes as Washington State took a 15-9 lead at the under-twelve timeout. Iowa responded with a 7-0 run themselves and took back the lead on an Owen Freeman putback dunk. Freeman got a technical on the “head tap” celebration, which gave him his second personal foul with 7:57 left until the half.

Iowa  forced six turnovers in a four-minute stretch towards the end of the half, which helped them go on a 12-2 run to take a 32-21 lead. Completely flipping this game on its head.

Washington State guard Nate Calmese was a matchup nightmare in the half though as his 15 points led everyone going into the break.

2nd half: The Hawkeyes came out of the half slow, starting just 2-7 from the field. Nate Calmese continued to torture the Hawkeye defense as he scored ten points in the first 8:21 of the second half. Iowa matched that with multiple buckets from Owen Freeman and Payton Sandfort. The game was tied at 50 with 11:39 to play.

They continued to go back for forth, or whatever you call exchanging misses. At the 5:30 mark, both teams were a combined 9-44 (20.4%) from three. They proceeded to make four straight threes after that point, two of them came from Iowa’s Drew Thelwell. He gave the Hawkeyes a 63-62 lead with his second one.

The biggest play late in the game was a ten second violation the Hawkeyes forced, which then led to an Owen Freeman basket that gave Iowa their biggest lead of the night at 66-62.

It turned into a free throw battle from that point on and even though the Hawkeyes had an poor shooting night from the line (18-27), they knocked down the biggest ones of the night.

See what a few of the Hawkeyes and Coach McCaffery had to say postgame here: