Defense helps exorcise some Hawkeye demons

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Down 17 at halftime on the road, there weren't too many people outside the Iowa men's basketball locker room at Mackey Arena who thought the Hawkeyes had a good shot to get a second straight Big Ten win.

Purdue had stifled Iowa's offense and hit seven 3-pointers in the first half, injecting lots of energy into the 14,846 in attendance on Rick Mount bobblehead night.

But the Hawkeyes (11-3, 2-0 Big Ten) stayed the course. And turned up the wick with a pressure and trap defense that confused and frustrated the No. 14 Boilermakers (13-2, 1-1). They believed in themselves, and that belief drove them to a 70-63 comeback victory.

'At halftime, nobody else probably thought we were going to come back and win, (and) in the locker room we said, 'The only people who believe we can win this game is us,'' said guard Peter Jok, who had 11 points and nine rebounds. 'We had that belief the whole time. Coach told us to take it two (points) at a time. That's what we did. We didn't rush it, we didn't shoot a lot of 3s.

'It was fun.'

That sentiment was echoed by each of Jok's teammates, and thousands of Hawkeye fans on social media eager for something to root for after the football team's loss in the Rose Bowl.

What was most fun for Iowa in that second half was following through on their halftime belief, and following through most especially on the defensive end.

A 1-2-2 press forced 10 Purdue turnovers in the second half, and fueled easy baskets for the Hawkeyes' offense, which had produced just 20 points in the first half on 23.3 percent shooting from the field. Iowa allowed those seven Boilermaker 3-pointers, as well as 14 points in the paint, which was the exact formula Purdue wanted. The switch to the pressure — both full-court and on-ball in half-court sets — was what made the difference.

'If they're making 3s, they're scoring inside and outside; they get their defense back and you can't run. It changes the game in a lot of different ways,' said Coach Fran McCaffery. 'We wanted to keep it out, but get out with a hand up and pressure, and not let them get easy 3s or let the post feeds be without a lot of problems.

'We wanted to be more aggressive with (the pressure), which we were. I thought we executed our slides a little better in the second half — we were a little spread out. We were a little tighter and more aggressive; more active.'

He wanted to see all that, and he got it.

Iowa was galvanized by losing its three games this season by just 12 points. Just like they wanted to close out the Michigan State game with a big lead on Tuesday, they wanted to prove to themselves they were never out of any game.

It helped they had their best defensive effort, giving another superb performance at that end.

'Coach challenged us. He challenged the starters, he challenged the bench. We all just came together and decided to play basketball. I'm proud of our guys,' said Anthony Clemmons, who had all eight of his points in the second half and finished with four steals. 'We just wanted to speed the game up. Through previous years, they had trouble with it. We wanted to bring that back.

'We've been through low moments, we've been through high moments. We know what it's like. We were never down on ourselves throughout this game. We came in the locker room and said, 'Let's just stick together and keep fighting.' I think that's what we did.'

McCaffery has seen this team make strides this season the Hawkeyes haven't really ever been able to make while he's been head coach.

Saturday's win at Mackey Arena was the first for Iowa at Purdue since 2006 — five years and two coaches before McCaffery took over. It marked the exorcism of two types of losses they've had so many times over the last several seasons. In the span of five days, big leads were held and big deficits were overcome — and two top-15 teams went down in the process.

Ever the coach, though, there's no standing pat on these wins. It'll be a joyous ride home, then back to work.

'We've played well here the last two years and didn't win. That's why I'm so happy for our guys — to play well and then get over the hump and get a win here,' McCaffery said. 'This is a top-10, top-15 team and will be all year long. To beat them on the road is something that will help our confidence going forward.

'I think it says we're in a good place. It says we can fight and compete. But we've still got 16 more. We've got a whole lot of tough games left and you can't ever be satisfied. You can appreciate what you've done, you can analyze the good things we did and analyze how we got down 17 — make sure it doesn't happen again.'

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