Big rally, but still a loss for Iowa

IOWA CITY - Right now, the Iowa Hawkeyes are Peter Jok's back.

Sometimes good, sometimes not. In need of some rest and recovery, which they - and it - will get.

An 84-76 loss Thursday night to 25th-ranked Maryland was disappointing, among other adjectives. The Hawkeyes fought from 15 points down in the first half to take a three-point lead with under five minutes to go.

Carver-Hawkeye Arena was rocking.

But Melo Trimble did what one of the Big Ten Conference's best players, and a possible future NBAer, should do. The junior guard stroked a game-tying 3-pointer, a go-ahead 3, finishing with nine of his team's final 15 points to spearhead the Terps' successful counter rally.

'They made some big shots,” said Iowa's Ahmad Wagner. 'Melo hit some big shots, ones that kind of pulled the game for them. Put it away for them. That was the big thing.”

'I think you've got to give them credit for the shots they made,” said Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery. 'I mean, they were moving the ball. Our activity defensively was obviously much better in the second half. I'm proud of our guys, the way they fought back. But (Maryland) did a good job of answering our runs with timely baskets.”

Back to Jok, zero pun intended. Iowa's best player had his back tighten up on him in a blowout loss this past Sunday against Northwestern, and it didn't appear to be much better here.

He gutted through 31 minutes, scoring 14 points, though only two came in the second half. He ended up making 4 of 12 shots, obvious to detect he wasn't the same player.

'It's pretty sore, made me limited on both offense and defense,” he said. 'But they needed me out there, so I went out there and did as much as I could ... We'll see how it is tomorrow and go from there.”

Iowa (11-9, 3-4) finally gets a Big Ten bye, not playing again until Wednesday at Illinois. Couldn't come at a better time.

'Just work on ourselves,” said Iowa's Nicholas Baer. 'Moving the ball side to side, making sure that we can get good shots. We'll have time to work on us internally, fix the things we need to shore up.”

Maryland (17-2, 5-1) stormed to an 8-0 lead quicker than many of the 11,040 fans could get to their seats for the 6 p.m. tip. Iowa's defense lacked just about everything, the Terps taking a 35-20 edge on an Ivan Bender putback with 7:09 left in the opening half.

The Hawkeyes weren't much better offensively, going 8 minutes and 20 seconds between field goals.

'Some disappointment regarding our effort level at the start of the game,” McCaffery said. 'I don't think I, nor any coach, ever expects perfection, especially when you're playing a team of that caliber ... But I didn't think our effort at the beginning of the game matched their ability to move the ball and execute with their offense.”

Iowa hung around, though, thanks mostly to a plethora of Maryland turnovers. It was a 41-32 game at the break, with the unusual five of Wagner, Baer, Ryan Kriener, Brady Ellingson and Jordan Bohannon finally sparking the comeback.

Wagner was a beast on the interior, tying his career high with 12 points and six rebounds, all in just 15 minutes. His free throw and putback gave the Hawks a 69-66 lead.

'He was the difference in the game,” McCaffery said. 'There's no question about that. He sort of imposed his will on that game, which isn't easy to do against a team that's that athletic.”

But Trimble turned out to be too much. Maryland did a terrific job of perimeter passing against Iowa's 3-2 zone to free the 6-foot-3 guard, who came in averaging 17.2 points but who had been in a shooting slump.

In his previous four games, Trimble was 20 of 62 from the field.

'It was great to see Melo make shots like that for us in the clutch,” Maryland Coach Mark Turgeon said. 'That's what he's done most of his career. He hasn't been doing that lately, his last couple of games, so to see him step up was terrific.”

Trimble finished with a game-high 20 points, one of five Maryland players to score in double figures. The Terps shot 56 percent from the field, though 21 turnovers negated that to an extent.

Jordan Bohannon was Iowa's other player in double figures with 11 points. Dale Jones played his first game since mid-November for the Hawkeyes, going scoreless in four minutes of action.

Dom Uhl missed a second straight game with a hand injury. McCaffery said he didn't play because he 'didn't look right” in Wednesday's practice.

'They have a heck of a team. They're going to be great,” Turgeon said. 'The future is unbelievably bright at Iowa.”

'Tonight I thought we had a little bit of fight to come back,” Baer said. 'Being down 15, chipping away at their lead. We really worked on our defense in practice. It wasn't great in the first half, but that second half, during that stretch, I thought we defended really well. I think that shows what we're capable of.”

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