Bryce Cartwright leads Hawkeyes to 2nd straight Big Ten win

BLOOMINGTON, IND. - Left for dead in a raucous atmosphere and trailing Indiana by 10 points late in the second half, the Iowa men's basketball team fought back with the tenacity symbolized by their on-floor leader.

Junior point guard Bryce Cartwright, basically a recruiting after-thought entering this season, commanded the Iowa offense to near-perfection in the final 7 minutes and hit a baseline jumper with 1:26 left to give the Hawkeyes a 64-63 win Saturday at Assembly Hall.

That shot decided the game's outcome, but it was Cartwright's grit that put Iowa in position to win. He had the faith of his teammates and his coach, and he didn't want to let them down.

Iowa (10-13, 3-8) trailed 58-50 with 7:13 left and Iowa's players huddled at the bench for a media timeout. Before walking back on the court, Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery and junior Bryce Cartwright had a small, yet productive conversation.

“The last thing I said to him was ‘You get us home now,'” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. “He said, ‘I got you coach. I'll get you home.' Because he had to do it. He had to engineer victory at that point in the game.”

“He said, ‘Take us home. We're gonna need you,'” Cartwright said. “I took it to heart, and that talk right there probably won us the game in itself.”

Cartwright, who finished with 15 points and eight assists, scored six and dished two after the media break. Iowa ended the game on a 16-5 run, highlighted with scores on six straight possessions. With Cartwright running the offense, freshman Melsahn Basabe was open down low and pounded the Hoosiers inside. Basabe scored eight points on that run and knotted the game at 60-60 with a pair of free throws.

The teams traded backs in the final few minutes, and Indiana took a one-point lead at 63-62 when Victor Oladipo sank 1-of-2 free throws. But Cartwright came down the court and hit the game-deciding baseline jumper.

”Our team was supposed to spot up, and if we don't have nothing, just run motion,” Cartwright said. “I felt I had a shot that I usually make, a step-back shot in my comfort zone.”

The game was hardly over with Cartwright's shot. Indiana's Verdell Jones III missed a jumper, and Iowa junior Matt Gatens grabbed the rebound in traffic. On Iowa's next possession, Gatens countered with his own miss and left 27 seconds for the Hoosiers' final chance.

Indiana moved the ball around the perimeter until Coach Tom Crean called a timeout with 13.7 seconds left and called another one with 5.8 seconds remaining. Iowa then switched defenses from the 1-2-2 zone it employed for the last five minutes to a man-to-man. Jones took the final shot in front of Gatens, and the ball bounced off the rim and to the left. Basabe reached for the rebound and tipped up the ball, which glided off the rim when the buzzer sounded.

“I knew it was up, but I wanted to tip it away from their man because I didn't want nobody to grab it,” Basabe said. “I didn't think it was up, and then they almost got a second tip, and I can't even remember. It was such a crazy situation. As long as it (doesn't) go in, I don't care what happens.”

Basabe put up his fifth double-double this season with 20 points and 13 rebounds. Early in the second half he was embarrassed by an Indiana's Will Sheehey, who dunked the ball viciously in Basabe's face, eliciting a loud ovation from the sellout crowd.

It didn't faze Basabe, however. He scored eight points after the play.

“I'm always confident on the court,” Basabe said. “I'm from New York. No environment is scary to me. I have my composure; 17,000 Indiana residents can't intimidate me.”

The win ended plenty of bad streaks for Iowa. It was the team's first back-to-back wins in the Big Ten since 2007 under former coach - once removed - Steve Alford. It was Iowa's first one-point victory since March 6, 2004 (a 63-62 win against Purdue) and it was the first time Iowa had beaten Indiana at Assembly Hall in consecutive seasons since 1967-68.

With the win Iowa also matched last year's victory total.

“What we had was an opportunity to maintain our composure when they made their run,” McCaffery said. “It was 10 points with under (eight) minutes left. That's a lifetime. We executed … I'm just really proud of our composure.”