Iowa men’s basketball outlasts Nebraska to swipe Big Ten tournament spot

LINCOLN, Neb. — Iowa men’s basketball may have just burst Nebraska’s bubble and, more importantly, kept its own season alive.

The Hawkeyes (16-15, 7-13) outlasted Nebraska (17-14, 7-13), 83-68, to swipe one of the last spots in the Big Ten tournament. It quite possibly spoiled the Huskers’ path to a March Madness bid after they were on the NCAA tournament bubble.

“We’ve had a few of these, but that was a culture win,” Iowa’s Payton Sandfort said, “where your back’s against the wall and you just keep fighting. The season could have been over today, but now we get another fresh start and go to Indy, and anything can happen in March.”

After a relatively competitive first half, Iowa broke free in the second half with hot shooting from Josh Dix and the Sandfort brothers along with improved all-around defense.

Dix scored 11 second-half points on 5-of-9 shooting and finished the afternoon with 15 total points.

“We were setting him up coming down the stretch, getting a matchup,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. “But he’s going to make big shots. He’s going to make big plays. And he’s going to play both ends, and that’s why he’s special.”

The only Hawkeyes who finished more scoring were the Sandfort brothers. Payton Sandfort totaled 22 points on 9-for-18 shooting in his final regular season as a Hawkeye.

Pryce, meanwhile, had 16 points, hit four 3-pointers and led the team with 11 rebounds. It was his first career double-double. Fellow sophomore Brock Harding had 12 points on 4-of-7 shooting.

“Pryce in the first half was a big difference in the game,” McCaffery said. “Our offense was OK, wasn’t flowing as smoothly as it could. And he comes off the bench and really impacts our ability to get a lead.”

The Hawkeyes shot 49.2 percent from the field and 39.3 percent from 3-point range. Their 11 3-pointers made were the most in a game since Feb. 4 against Purdue. They also had 18 assists versus four turnovers.

Iowa’s defense was not perfect in the second half, as evident by some of Nebraska’s open looks. But the Hawkeyes did enough to hold the Huskers to 28.6 percent shooting after intermission.

Nebraska overall shot 34.9 percent from the field — far below the 48.1 percent that Iowa has allowed this season.

“The big thing was we were getting the first rebound,” Payton Sandfort said. “We made a lot of shots tough on them. They had some good shooters missing, but that’s how it goes.”

Nebraska’s Brice Williams, who averaged a team-high 20.4 points per game ahead of Sunday’s contest, scored only seven points on 3-of-12 shooting against the Hawkeyes. McCaffery especially took pride in Iowa’s defense against him considering he is a “serious player of the year candidate in our league.”

“We did a good job on him, and that was obviously a focus of our defense,” McCaffery said.

Iowa’s win on Sunday ensured that the Hawkeyes will finish with a .500-or-above regular-season record for the 13th time in McCaffery’s 15 seasons at the helm. The Hawkeyes lost their last three games and five of their last six games before Sunday.

“I felt like this group just kept fighting,” Dix said. “We stayed together throughout.”

The Huskers have now lost five straight games, dating back to mid-February. This season marks Iowa’s first season sweep over Nebraska since 2014-15.

Iowa, the No. 15 seed in the Big Ten tournament, will face 10th-seeded Ohio State on Wednesday. The Hawkeyes suffered a 82-65 loss when facing the Buckeyes in the regular season.

“I think if we can get hot, we can win it all,” Dix said. “That’s the goal. We just got to play like we did tonight. … If we hold teams to 66, I like our chances every night.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

Sign up for our curated Iowa Hawkeyes athletics newsletter at thegazette.com/hawks.