Dom Uhl 'the difference in the game' for Iowa in win over Rutgers

IOWA CITY — It seemed there was a switch that flipped midway through the second half on Sunday for the Iowa men's basketball team.

The Hawkeyes trailed Rutgers, 51-42, with 10:12 to go in the game, and went 8:06 without a field goal before Peter Jok's jumper with 8:24 left. Before that, Coach Fran McCaffery saw his team a step behind on defense and turnover happy on offense.

Iowa (10-7, 2-2 Big Ten) made its way back from down nine using a 17-4 run to leave Carver-Hawkeye Arena with a 68-62 win against Rutgers (11-6, 0-4). The difference between before and after Dom Uhl's two free throws started an 8-0 spurt with 10:12 remaining was simple for McCaffery.

'Him. Yeah, it was him. He was the man today. He was the difference in the game, without question. Dom Uhl,' McCaffery said. 'I was so proud of him. I should have played him more in the second half the other night (against Nebraska). It was one of those games where we kind of had a lineup and we stuck with that group.

'He could have hung his head (but) he had a terrific practice yesterday. I just thought he earned the opportunity to get more minutes, and that's the reason we won.'

Uhl was expected to be one of Iowa's top contributors this season, as one of the few upperclassmen on Iowa's roster, but it hadn't worked out that way before Sunday. As his statistical impact on the team waned, so did his minutes, as McCaffery pointed out about the Nebraska game.

But through that time, he and his teammates said the effort to 'stay positive' was pervasive. McCaffery said there's been a mix, from his perspective, of sitting him down and leaving him alone. No matter what, he said, there was no tearing Uhl down because 'he's already struggling a little bit about certain things, so he doesn't need me to be negative, or my coaching staff.'

Uhl started the season a starter and saw that change in favor of freshmen. He didn't cash in on the minutes he was playing. Because of that, 'it would have been real easy for him to get mad at me and make excuses. He just kept working,' McCaffery said.

With 10 points, eight rebounds and five blocks — one of which in the final minutes that kept Iowa at a two-possession lead — the work paid off for now.

'You've just got to stay positive, talk to coaches, friends and family. You've got to keep working,' Uhl said. 'It doesn't help (to get frustrated). I can be mad all I want, but he's the coach; he makes the decisions.

'They've kept me going. They've tried to work on my game with me. Coach Fran always stays on me; tells me to go in the gym when I get down and stuff.'

His teammates were happy for him, of course, and agreed with their coach that Uhl was a catalyst to the victory. Uhl's individual effort and impact on the game was part of a larger wake-up from the Hawkeyes as a whole on defense.

Iowa forced turnovers in the zone press, with a few from senior Peter Jok, who finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds. The Hawkeyes turned up the wick in rebounding — compared to the first 30 or so minutes, in which Rutgers owned the glass — and turned defense into offense with multiple transition buckets in the final minutes.

Seeing Uhl make a few of the plays he did was what McCaffery cited as why, but his teammates echoed their coach. It has to be a collective effort from the start going forward, but the Hawkeyes will take a one-man motivator for now.

'I think it's just seeing a guy make a play and knowing he was working his hardest. That's just contagious,' said Cordell Pemsl, who had 13 points and two rebounds. 'One guy sees someone make a play that's really good and everyone wants to start doing that, and that's when we come together. But we need to learn to not let that be the reason we play defense. We need to do that from the start. We're going to work on that, but we're glad that it happened tonight.

'He did everything he needed to do to help us win, and then some. … The way Dom played shows he needs to be out there playing and helping us win more. He showed that tonight.'

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