Iowa 84, Rutgers 74: Knightfall

By RossWB on March 11, 2022 at 7:38 pm @rosswb
GO HAWKS GO
© Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports
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Second verse, same as the first? Well... almost. Iowa's second game at the Big Ten Tournament wasn't the easy, breezy romp that Thursday's offensive supernova against Northwestern was. But the end result was the same: a victorious Iowa team winning by double-digits and marching on to the next round. For the first time ever in Fran McCaffery's tenure at Iowa, the Hawkeyes have won two games at the Big Ten Tournament. Why not add on another win tomorrow, too? 

While Iowa got off the red-hot start against Northwestern, they got off to a much colder start against the Scarlet Knights -- at least briefly. Rutgers was the team hitting shots at the start of the game, and they opened up a 15-5 lead at the first media timeout. But those two things -- Iowa missing shots and Rutgers making shots -- go against the natural order of the universe and the basketball gods would not let that strangeness persist (especially after that abomination that Iowa and Rutgers produced in their earlier meeting this year, in Piscataway). A Jordan Bohannon three-pointer out of the timeout brought a spark to Iowa's offense -- and keyed a 23-5 Iowa run over the next 10 minutes. The highlight of that run was, well, the highlight of the game and one of the highlights of the season: 

Good Lord, Keegan Murray. That rim had a family. Coast-to-coast without breaking a sweat and finishing it off with an absolutely thunderous dunk. You know you've done something cool when the announcers look like this: 

Here's another angle of Keegan taking flight like a damn rocket. 

That run gave Iowa a lead they would not relinquish for the rest of the game. A pair of Keegan Murray free throws (part of a brilliant, 18-point first half for him) pushed Iowa's lead out to 12, 38-26, with 90 seconds before halftime, but back-to-back Rutgers three-pointers from Geo Baker and Ron Harper, Jr. halved Iowa's lead -- before Kris Murray hit back with a three-pointer of his own to give Iowa a 9-point lead, 41-32, heading into the break. 

For the first few minutes of the second half, Iowa and Rutgers simply traded baskets -- which is an OK situation to be in if you're a team with a good offense and a lead hovering around 10 points. And when Rutgers stopped matching Iowa bucket-for-bucket, Iowa was able to extend its lead out to 17 points. But the Scarlet Knights are a feisty bunch (in, uh, a lot of ways -- they got dinged for four total technical fouls in this game, including two on their strength and conditioning coach on the sideline, which was the first time I have ever seen that happen; suffice to say Bo Boroski was not in a guff-taking mood this afternoon) and they kept scratching away at Iowa's lead. And then Iowa was the team that couldn't make a shot -- they went over five minutes without a field goal in the second half, with the only points they could score coming at the free throw line. Rutgers cut Iowa's lead down to eight points with just over six minutes to go -- but that's as close as they would get. A 7-0 run by Iowa featuring a banked-in transition jumper from Tony Perkins, a steal-and-slam from Keegan, and a step-back three-pointer from Perkins boosted Iowa's lead back to 15 points and ended any hopes of a Rutgers comeback. 

This Iowa team is just humming right now and it's so much damn fun to watch. They had a rocky start offensively, but once they settled down and got some better ball movement on offense (and some good looks in transition once Rutgers' stopped making every shot), the offense clicked into place and was the high-powered machine we've become accustomed to seeing over the last few months.

Rebounding remains a significant source of strength for Iowa, too -- they had a 34-28 edge on the Scarlet Knights on the glass in this game, although Rutgers did have a narrow advantage (10-8) on the offensive glass, which gave them a 12-9 advantage in second chance points. But Iowa continues to attack the glass at a consistently high level, and gets solid contributions from multiple players in that regard. Keegan had a team-high eight boards, but Filip Rebraca had six rebounds, and Kris Murray and Payton Sandfort each had five rebounds off the bench. Attitude and effort go a long way in rebounding and Iowa has been putting in the work in those departments in recent weeks -- this game was no different.

Iowa also continues to play solid defense and effectively slow opponents down. They're never going to play smothering defense, but what they're doing on that end is certainly effective. They're mixing up looks effectively; in this game Iowa went to more zone looks after struggling to keep Rutgers from getting to the rim at the start of the game, and their zone was extremely effective in getting Rutgers off-balance on offense. The Scarlet Knights looked flummoxed for long stretches against Iowa, which is not a thing you've often been able to say about Iowa's defense in recent years. 

Keegan Murray once again showed off his superstar bona fides -- and exorcised a few demons from his previous game against Rutgers. Keegan had one of his worst games of the season when Iowa played Rutgers back in January -- 13 points on 5/14 shooting and 4 fouls -- but he didn't let the Scarlet Knights slow him down today. He had 26 points for the game (on 10/19 shooting, 0/5 3FG), to go with eight rebounds, two blocks, and a steal. 18 of those 26 points came in the first half, when he was the key figure in Iowa's turnaround after the sluggish start. Even with his long-range shots not falling, Keegan hit Rutgers with the rest of his bag of tricks, including some smart moves around the basket, a nasty fadeaway jumper, and some vicious transition dunks. 

He is so much damn fun to watch. Oh yeah and he set the new single-season scoring record for Iowa, breaking the record held by Luka Garza for... one season. 

(He scored two more points after that, so he's currently at 750 points for the season.)

Not gonna lie: I definitely thought that record was going to last a lot longer than it did. But Keegan would not be denied and he's been simply outstanding game after game after game this season. Kudos to our new single-season scoring king -- who, of course, has at least a few more additional games to keep adding to that school record tally, too. 

If the first half was dominated by Keegan, the second half was another showcase of Tony Perkins' outstanding emergence over the last few months. Perkins scored 13 of his 16 points in the second half, on 5/7 shooting (1/2 3FG), plus a pair of assists. He also had one of the heads-up plays of the game, scrambling for a loose ball and kicking the ball to a wide-open Bohannon for a three-pointer that extended Iowa's lead to 11 points early in the second half. Perkins played strong defense as well and continued to be one of the best players on the court for Iowa, as he's often been over the last six weeks or so. This second-half showing was particularly impressive because it came after he played just 10 minutes in the first half after getting benched by Fran for a mistake. Perkins shook that off and played 16 very strong minutes in the second half. His emergence has been a game-changer for Iowa, providing a versatile perimeter weapon to complement Keegan's inside presence. 

Bohannon was the final Iowa player in double figures, with 16 points on 3/6 shooting and a 7/8 showing at the free throw line. Speaking of free throws -- that was another important factor in Iowa's victory. Ghastly free throw shooting killed Iowa against Illinois last week, but free throws helped carry Iowa to a win today. The Hawkeyes made their first 21 free throws in the game and finished 25/27 at the stripe, which is a great number. Free throw shooting helped carry Iowa's offense went it went dry for a spell in the second half and helped put the game out of reach late. Make your free throws, fellas. 

Shout-out to Filip Rebraca as well, who didn't score in double-figures, but again gave Iowa strong minutes in the post -- he had 5 points, 6 rebounds, and a block, as well some heady plays at key moments. He's definitely been playing his best ball of the season over the last few weeks. Iowa also got strong contributions off the bench. In fact, Iowa's bench out-scored Rutgers' bench 18-0, another key advantage for the Hawkeyes. Kris Murray was productive off the bench with 9 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 blocks, but Iowa also got good production from Payton Sandfort (just 2 points on 0/3 shooting, but 5 rebounds and an assist in nine minutes) and some really strong minutes form Connor McCaffery. He had three points (1/3 3FG) and two rebounds -- but he also had five assists, including some inch-perfect entry passes and some perfectly-timed lob passes to Keegan Murray on some alley-oop dunks. When he's able to do that, Connor really shows the value he can provide to this team. (He also picked up two technical fouls and got tossed, so, y'know, not quite a perfect game for him -- although both technical fouls looked pretty soft, if we're being honest.) 

The Big Ten Tournament semifinals beckon. This has not been familiar territory for Iowa basketball under Fran McCaffery; their only other appearance on Saturday at the Big Ten Tournament was last year, when they started the tournament on Friday, thanks to a rare double-bye. The Big Ten Tournament has more often been a house of horrors for the Hawkeyes, though you don't need me to recount the grisly details behind so many of those one-and-done appearances in the middle of the '10s. But, more and more, this feels like an exorcise-the-demons team for Fran and the Hawkeyes. They already erased the memories of February fades of years past. Why not push those Big Ten Tournament failures further into the past and replace them with some more memories of Big Ten Tournament success? The only thing standing between Iowa and a return trip to the Big Ten Tournament final for the first time since 2006 is Indiana. Go mash some Hoosiers, Hawkeyes. 

NEXT: Iowa faces Indiana (20-12, 9-11 Big Ten) in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals on Saturday, March 12 at 12 PM CT (CBS). 

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