Brock Harding’s all-day heater helps Hawkeyes burn Ohio State in Big Ten tourney, 77-70

INDIANAPOLIS — Brock Harding had been 0-for-31 from deep before he helped shoot Iowa into the second round of the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament Wednesday night.

“It’s a little embarrassing,” Harding said. “Every morning shootaround before a game, I attempt a half-court shot. I was 0-for-31 going into today. Then today I ended up making one for the first time, and we ended up winning.

“It must have helped out a little bit with the basketball gods.”

The sophomore guard brought the heat with him Wednesday evening. He was 3-for-3 in 3-pointers during the Hawkeyes’ 77-70 win over Ohio State, giving them two elimination-game wins in four days. Harding scored 12 points in Iowa’s 83-68 win at Nebraska Sunday that got the team into this 15-team tourney as the No. 15 seed.

Iowa (17-15) proceeds forward, with a 6:30 p.m. (Iowa time) second-round game against 24th-ranked Illinois (20-11) Thursday on BTN.

Harding was 5-of-6 overall and scored 15 points against the Buckeyes. The statement shot was a 3-pointer late in the shot clock off a Josh Dix feed with 14.4 seconds left. Iowa had been nursing a 72-70 lead after Ohio State had ripped off five straight late points to pull within a bucket.

A team win, this was. It was predicated — that’s right — on defense.

The Hawkeyes held Ohio State to 42.4 percent shooting while making 54.7 percent themselves. Four different Iowa players blocked shots for a total of six.

Payton Sandfort and Dix, the team’s top scorers among its active players, had 17 and 16 points, respectively. Pryce Sandfort had 10 points including back-to-back drives for baskets that erased OSU’s only second-half lead and a 3-pointer with 3:34 left for a 68-61 Iowa lead.

Sophomore forward Ladji Dembele had 8 points and 9 rebounds, and sank two free throws with 1:49 remaining.

Nebraska had an outside shot at an NCAA tournament berth, and Iowa wrecked that. Ohio State was on the inside edge of the NCAA bubble according to four out of every five recommended bracketologists, but the Hawkeyes bounced the Buckeyes, who also are 17-15.

For Iowa to get to the NCAAs, it’s still four wins away. In realistic terms, that’s about 99,000 miles. But you can’t start a fire without a spark, and the Hawkeyes had one Wednesday.

“We want to get to the tournament,” Dix said, “but we know that we’re also kind of playing with house money right now. We weren’t even supposed to be here, like, a week ago. We know these teams are fighting for postseason spots and we’re just trying to knock everyone off one by one.”

Ohio State scored the game’s first six points, but didn’t exactly jump to a 6-0 lead. The Buckeyes got their first basket on a 3-pointer with 14:57 left in the first half after holding a 3-0 lead built on free throws.

Dembele scored off a rebound with 14:11 left to make it 6-2, and then things quickly took off. Harding came in the game with 14:23 left in the half, and Iowa’s offense immediately had more potency. He scored eight straight Hawkeye points, and the teams went back and forth, with 11 lead-changes and six ties in the half.

Iowa scored the first four points after halftime for a 41-37 edge, and led for all but 15 seconds after that.

A Hawkeyes team in danger of having its season end at the start of this week hasn’t gone away.

“That’s what makes you proud,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. “When they stay together and compete, win on the road, and come down here and win. Watching them celebrate the locker room, that's what it's all about.”

For senior Payton Sandfort, it was his first Big Ten tourney win since he was a freshman contributor to the Hawkeyes team that was the champion of the 2022 event in this arena.

“Going to play with this team one more time, get a good feeling tonight,” Sandfort said, “but we’ve got to get back to work tomorrow.”

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