Hawkeyes fell behind immediately, never caught USC in 99-89 men’s basketball loss

(This story was written in Cedar Rapids.)

LOS ANGELES — The Iowa men’s basketball team’s road rut deepened Tuesday night.

The Hawkeyes fell to 0-3 in Big Ten road games with a 99-89 loss to Southern California at the Galen Center. Iowa slipped to 3-3 in the conference, 13-5 overall.

The Trojans (3-3, 11-6) shot 64.9 percent from the field and made 10 of 15 three — pointers. They came in averaging just 6.2 threes per game. The Trojans scored 50 points in the paint. They also had a 37-20 rebounding advantage.

Asked about his defense allowing what it did, Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said this in a postgame Zoom conference:

“There’s a lot of reasons for it. We got off to a bad start. They got comfortable. … I thought our defense was not what it needed to be.

“Our rebounding was not good, and we didn’t get to the offensive glass at all.

“But I thought we did some good things in the second half with our break. We had some guys step up and make some shots to get back in the game.”

After home wins over Nebraska and Indiana last week, Iowa never led here. It trailed by as much as 18 points in the second half before pulling within 85-80 with 4:35 left. The Hawkeyes went without a basket for the next 2:25, however, and were never again closer than eight points.

Iowa scored 57 points in the second half.

USC’s Desmond Claude had 25, Saint Thomas 24, and redshirt freshman Wesley Yates III had a career-high 21. Claude had nine assists, Thomas seven. Brock Harding had eight for Iowa.

The Hawkeyes shot 53.3 percent. They were led by Owen Freeman’s career-high 23 points. He made 11 of 14 shots. Payton Sandfort added 20 points, 15 in the second half. Drew Thelwell had 16 points.

“This one hurts,” Thelwell said on the Hawkeye Radio Network’s postgame show.

USC led 48-32 at halftime, starting and finishing the first half with five straight points.

Yates made a career-high four 3-pointers and scored 16 points in the half.

The Trojans capitalized on the momentum of their 82-72 upset win at then-No. 13 Illinois last Saturday. Claude, a 6-foot-6 guard who transferred from Xavier, has 56 points in his last two games. .

Iowa’s next game is against UCLA (8 p.m., CT) Friday.

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