It was louder, at least, but the same old song for Hawkeyes

IOWA CITY - It was largely a manufactured crowd, built on free admission for the university's students and pregame autographs from Iowa football players to Hawkeye fans of all ages.

"The people came for the football thing or something like that?" Ohio State star basketball forward Evan Turner said after his team's 65-57 win over Iowa Wednesday night.

"With this economy and free seats for a basketball game, we knew there would be a good atmosphere."

The love that emanated from the Carver-Hawkeye Arena seats - most of them actually filled with humans for a change - that wasn't bought.

It took until 16 seconds remained and Iowa's fate was sealed before the fans made their mass exodus to the parking lots, most of whom went home having used their voices to support their team.

"We had a chance," they might have said.

"Nice try," they might have said.

"Those freshmen can play a little bit," they might have said. "That Eric May can shoot a little bit. That Cully Payne can spot the open man."

But the result was same-old, same-old when it comes to the Hawkeyes playing a good Big Ten team, and Ohio State is definitely one of those. A clear rebirth of Hawkeye hoops wasn't witnessed Wednesday.

At least the old-time sound and fury of Carver-Hawkeye returned to a degree.

When May popped in two of his five 3-pointers on successive possessions midway through the second half and Iowa held a 42-36 lead, you could have closed your eyes and thought you were transported back a decade or two.

This wasn't Cricket-Hawkeye for a change. Not when May was blocking shots of great Buckeye forward Evan Turner, or when Payne was whipping cross-court passes to open teammates for good looks at 3-pointers, or when guard Matt Gatens was gutting out 38 minutes on an ankle he sprained in a shoot-around earlier in the day.

But the last three minutes were more typical of the current era of Hawkeye basketball. After leading the whole second half, Iowa fell behind with 2:45 left. Turner scored half his 16 points in the final two minutes, including the defining basket when he stole a long inbounds pass and glided for a dunk to make it 55-50 with 1:39 left.

That was the moment when everyone among the announced crowd of 12,132 knew no upset was taking place here this night, no claim to stake that a corner had been turned in the program.

"We just made too many errors to beat a team," Iowa Coach Todd Lickliter rued.

He knew a golden opportunity had escaped, a chance for his program to build on its 2-1 mark in its previous three league games, with the loss being a nice effort at mighty Michigan State.

"It was ours to control," Lickliter said, "and we just didn't finish it."

You saw the nice things from May, Payne, Gatens and company. But you also saw the skills and fluidity and composure of Turner and terrific swingman David Lighty and smooth shooting guard William Buford. You didn't need to know the teams' records to tell which was better.

But, this Iowa program part of what it needs to do and reached out to its fans. Before and during the game. The crickets were drowned out. The fans came for the football team and stayed for the basketball.

The trick is to keep them coming back. No slam-dunk, that.