Iowa played TCU on Saturday night in a game for all the Emerald Coasts... and the Emerald Coasts are headed back to the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. Iowa lost 79-66 to TCU and the game wasn't really even that close for much of the second half. The Horned Frogs went off for 43 points in the second half and had a lead around 20 points for long stretches after halftime.
This was, to put it mildly, a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad game by Iowa.
The signs were there from the beginning -- Iowa looked flat and out of sync to start the game and the Horned Frogs jumped out to a quick 9-0 lead. Fran McCaffery called a rare early timeout to help Iowa find its mojo and gave quick hooks to Payton Sandfort, Patrick McCaffery, and Tony Perkins, replacing them with Ahron Ulis, Dasonte Bowen, and Connor McCaffery. The substitutions had the desired effect, with Ulis and Bowen particularly looking lively and getting Iowa going in transition. Iowa went on an 11-2 run after that early timeout and tied the game at 11-all before Pitt called its own timeout. The rest of the half proceeded in similar fashion, generally with TCU going on a run, before Iowa strung together a few buckets to haul them back within shouting distance. Iowa struggled to find an effective rhythm on offense and conceded too many offensive rebounds and easy cuts to the rim on defense. Still, despite coughing up 9 turnovers (which led to 13 TCU points)) and getting beat 18-11 (6-2 in offensive rebounds, which led to a 10-2 edge in second chance points for TCU, Iowa trailed just 36-34 at the haff. Perhaps Iowa could use the halftime break to reset, find some good energy, and shake off the problems from the first half.
Reader, they did not.
Iowa had kept pace with TCU in the first half by taking advantage of a lot of TCU turnovers themselves (11 Horned Frog giveaways led to 10 Iowa points) and by generally shooting pretty well (53.8% overall, 60% on 2-point tries). TCU stopped turning the ball over in the second half (just four turnovers) and, more crucially, Iowa stopped hitting anything. The Hawkeyes were 3/17 from the floor at one point early in the second half and they ended up shooting 34% (12/35) from the floor after the break. TCU, meanwhile, also stopped turning the ball over -- and made their shots. Like, all of them. At one point TCU was shooting around 70% from the floor, though they wound up "only" shooting 56% for the half.
Three-point shooting was especially woeful for Iowa; they were 1/11 in the second half and 3/17 for the game. Iowa was also just 4/19 from long range against Clemson last night; suffice to say that the Niceville rims did not agree with them. Iowa made up for that lousy three-point shooting last night by doing damage at the free throw line (24/30), but they were just 11/15 at the charity stripe against TCU.
There's no ignoring the elephant in the room either: TCU's style of play absolutely gave Iowa fits. TCU has a roster full of lanky, bouncy athletes and they swarmed all over Iowa all night, especially on defense. The Horned Frogs also played with a lot of physicality, which Iowa struggled to adjust to all game. Whether you like that style of play is irrelevant; TCU is hardly the only big, physical team that Iowa will play this season (the Hawks still play in the Big Ten, last I checked) and there will be plenty of opponents that will try to do to Iowa what TCU did in this game. How well Iowa is able to adjust to that style -- or how well they're able to enforce their own style on the game -- will be the key for Iowa as the season progresses.
On an individual level, three Iowa players finished in double figures in scoring: Perkins and Ulis with 15 apiece, and Kris Murray with 11. As was the case last night, though, Murray's performance was hardly a picture of efficiency; he was 4/14 overall and 2/6 from outside. Several of Perkins' 15 points game late in the game, after the outcome was all but decided. Ulis played very well, though, especially in the first half and provided an excellent spark for Iowa off the bench. Bowen also brought some much-needed juice off the bench; he finished with 8 points on 3/5 shooting. Sandfort shook off a rough start to finish with 7 points, 5 rebounds, and a team-high 3 assists. Against Clemson, Patrick McCaffery stepped up with Murray and Perkins struggling -- he had 21 points on 7/14 shooting. Unfortunately, he followed that up with one of his least productive outings in an Iowa uniform -- 0 points (0/5 FG, 0/3 3FG), 0 rebounds, 0 assists. Ouch.
This was a miserable game, especially after halftime, when TCU simply nuked Iowa for most of the half. But if Iowa is going to have a game like this, I suppose I'd rather see them have it now, in November, than in February or March. The die is pretty much cast for the season at that point and a loss then is likely to have far more significant consequences. This loss cost Iowa the Emerald Coast Classic championship, a spot in the Top 25, and the possibility of a resume-boosting win in March, but the rest of the season is still ahead of Iowa. There's still time for this team to grow and develop; hopefully they can take a few lessons from this clobbering and improve.
