By John Bohnenkamp

INDIANAPOLIS — The turnover gnawed at Brock Harding, especially when Bruce Thornton’s shot that followed cut Iowa’s lead to two points with less than a minute to play.

“I mean, you can’t turn the ball over like that late in the game,” Harding said. “Bruce Thornton comes down, hits a fade-away in the corner, and you’re like, ‘Damn, that’s on me.’”

There was only one way for Harding to respond, and he did.

Harding’s 3-pointer with 14 seconds left sealed Iowa’s 77-70 win over Ohio State in Wednesday’s Big Ten Tournament first-round game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

The win sends the Hawkeyes (17-15), the 15th seed in the tournament, into Thursday’s 5:30 p.m. (CDT) second-round game against fifth seed Illinois.

On a night when every Iowa player had some kind of big play, Harding’s shot was the one that impressed the rest of the Hawkeyes.

“Big-time players hit big-time shots,” guard Pryce Sandfort said.

The Hawkeyes came to Indy playing, guard Josh Dix said, with “house money.” They needed to win their regular-season finale against Nebraska last Sunday just to get here, and they figured they might as well stay a while.

“We weren’t even supposed to be here a week ago,” Dix said.

And yet here they are, having likely put a big pin in the NCAA tournament bubble of the Buckeyes (17-15), who did the same thing to the Hawkeyes in last season’s Big Ten Tournament.

“I saw something today, I told the guys they had, like, a 78% chance to make it (into the NCAA tournament) if they beat us, and then like 14 (percent) if they didn’t beat us,” Harding said.” We know our chance to get into the tournament isn’t great. So let’s win the tournament, and we might as well ruin their tournament.”

Iowa was staggered by the Buckeyes 82-65 on January 27, but the Hawkeyes matched every Ohio State punch in this game.

“They’re connected,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. “We’re going to keep playing.”

McCaffery praised Iowa’s defensive intensity. The Hawkeyes went almost the first six minutes of the game without scoring, but held the Buckeyes to 1 of 10 shooting. They held them to 42.4% shooting for the game, and Ohio State missed all eight of their second-half 3-point attempts.

“Probably as good a defense as we’ve played all year long,” McCaffery said. “Couldn’t be more proud.”

The Buckeyes had an 8-0 run midway through the second half that gave them a 58-57 lead, but Sandfort scored four points in 36 seconds to put the Hawkeyes back up. Iowa led 63-61 when Dix scored on a drive to the basket, then Sandfort followed with a 3-pointer from the wing.

The Hawkeyes led by seven points twice in the final three minutes, but the Buckeyes had one final push, and when Thornton, who led the Buckeyes with 24 points, scored off the Harding turnover, the lead was 72-70.

Dix was the one with the assist to Harding, who quickly atoned for his mistake and kept the Hawkeyes going.

“I was really hoping that Josh was going to hit the step-back middie, and he kicked it to me,” Harding said. “I knew I had to make up for the turnover somehow, and it found me and it went in.”

Harding had 15 points and Sandfort had 10, as Iowa held a 27-3 edge in bench points.

“You can’t survive a tournament, whether it’s three, four, five games, unless you have a

Bench,” McCaffery said. “It makes it almost impossible. We had 34 bench points on Sunday when we beat Nebraska on the road. You’re right, the bench was impactful in so many different ways. They made some baskets, but they rebounded, they defended, they showed versatility, they executed our offense when we needed them to. Just couldn’t be more proud of those guys.”

Payton Sandfort led Iowa with 17 points. Dix had 16.

Iowa is now two games above .500 and one win from clinching an eighth consecutive winning season, assuming Iowa goes on to play in a postseason tournament.

“I’d love to go on in this tournament,” Pryce Sandfort said. “This was just step one. So we’re ready to keep going.”