Purdue defeats Iowa men’s basketball team 90-81 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena
Iowa has lost five of last six games
By Hawk Fanatic
IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa men’s basketball team scored 81 points against Purdue on Tuesday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, and did so without its leading scorer, Owen Freeman.
But that still wasn’t enough as the seventh-ranked Boilermakers scored 90 points, including 54 in the second half and 31 by point guard Braden Smith.
The 90-81 loss was Iowa’s fifth loss in its last six games and it lowered Iowa’s record to 4-7 in Big Ten play and 13-9 overall.
The schedule doesn’t get any easier for Iowa with Wisconsin up next Saturday in Iowa City.
The Badgers crushed Iowa 116-85 on Jan. 3 in Madison, Wisconsin, and then afterwards, Wisconsin guard Kamari McGee said to the media that they knew Iowa didn’t want to play defense and took advantage of that.
In Tuesday’s game against Purdue, Iowa trimmed the deficit to 80-77 in the final minutes, but then missed two shots from 3-point range that would have tied the score.
Purdue made eight free throws in the final two minutes to secure the win.
Junior guard Josh Dix and senior forward Payton Sandfort helped to pick up the scoring slack caused by Freeman’s absence by scoring 27 and 23 points, respectively.
But the rest of the team only combined for 31 points, and it just wasn’t enough.
Freeman, a 6-foot-10 sophomore forward, recently injured a finger on his right shooting hand that required season-ending surgery on Monday.
Iowa graduate Drew Thelwell made one of Iowa’s six 3-point baskets in the first half to give his team a 36-31 lead with 1 minute,14 seconds left in the first half.
But then Purdue scored the final five points of the first half, including a 3-point basket by Braden Smith that barely beat the clock, evening the score at 36-36 at halftime.
Smith and forward Trey Kaufman-Renn combined to 25 of Purdue’s 36 points in the first half, led by Smith with 13.
Payton Sandfort also led Iowa with 13 points in the first half, while Dix had nine.
The Hawkeyes made 6-of-12 shots from 3-point range in the first half, but they were also just 2-of-7 from the free throw line.
The game was there for the taking heading into the second half as Iowa had shown, at least for one half, that it could compete with the Boilermakers despite being without Freeman.
Senior post players Riley Mulvey and Even Brauns both provided a spark for Iowa in the first half, mostly with their hustle on defense.
Editor’s note: More coverage of tonight’s game coming from Hawk Fanatic. Check in later for post-game interviews with Fran McCaffery and select players.