Arachnophobia! Icy shooting, Richmond Spiders bite Iowa Hawkeyes in NCAA loss

BUFFALO, N.Y. — They’ll always have the Big Ten tournament championship.

And this postseason, that’s all they’ll have.

The sound heard Thursday from Buffalo was the air seeping out of the puffiness Iowa got from winning the Big Ten title in Indianapolis four days earlier. The Hawkeyes brought none of their Indy game, shot 3-pointers miserably, gave up way too many baskets in the paint, and got bounced out of the NCAA tournament in the first round.

The Richmond Spiders, seeded 12th in the Midwest Region, ended 5-seed Iowa’s run before it even got started. The score was 67-63. It was a thud of a result and a dud of a 2022 NCAA tourney for the Hawkeyes, who had higher hopes projected on them by so many after the previous weekend’s glories.

Those who had predicted a Final Four berth for Iowa were off by four wins. Those who felt Iowa would at least end the Sweet 16 drought they have endured since 1999 were badly mistaken.

There’s no Chicago Sweet 16 date with Kansas next week. There’s not even a Round of 32 meeting here with Providence. It was don’t-survive-and-don’t-advance.

If you were an Iowa fan and didn’t have a fear of spiders before, you surely have a touch of arachnophobia today.

Also, you have a rational fear of this tournament.

The Hawkeyes (26-10) were the team that couldn’t shoot straight Thursday, exactly a week after they buried 19 of 29 3-pointers in a 112-76 Big Ten tourney game. Richmond (24-12) was supposed to have a lot in common with Northwestern, offensively. It was 49 points better than the Wildcats, defensively.

Of course, Iowa’s long-distance blues and 36.4 percent overall shooting helped the Spiders to their Saturday second-rounder here against Providence.

“We were 6-of-29 from the 3-point line, uncharacteristic of us,” said Iowa’s Keegan Murray, who had three of those attempts and went without a 3-pointer for only the fourth time this season.

“I feel like we got a lot of open looks that we usually make, especially in the first half. They just weren’t dropping.”

The thing is, Richmond was ripe for the picking by just an average Iowa offensive performance.

The Spiders made 42.1 percent of their shots and were 5-of-17 from 3-point range. They did, however, penetrate to the basket more effectively than the Hawkeyes, getting 38 of their points in the paint.

Murray, the consensus first-team All-American, had a team-high 21 points in what surely was his final Iowa game. He did go 15 minutes without a field goal try, however, and found driving for shots about as difficult as it had been all year.

“I was very, very anxious about guarding such a prolific offensive team,” Richmond Coach Chris Mooney said, “but I thought that we had multiple guys that we could put on Murray.

“He is a tremendous player, but I thought we did a very good job on him.”

“They're just physical, and they brought a lot of guys any time I was driving to the basket or in the paint area,” Murray said, “so it was really nothing new to me. But I was able to find a lot of guys in kick-outs and things like that. I really feel like I didn't have to score the ball as much this game.”

He did, however. Outside of Patrick McCaffery going 4-of-7 from deep in scoring 18 points, none of Murray’s teammates made more than two baskets.

Richmond junior forward Tyler Burton — the Spiders’ only non-senior starter — had 18 points and 11 rebounds and at the least, was Murray’s equal.

The difference-maker was Spider 5-foot-9 point guard Jacob Gilyard who had 24 points and six assists, the best player on the floor at creating scoring opportunities.

Iowa’s guards labored against Gilyard. Tony Perkins, who excelled at the Big Ten tourney, had a frustrating game. Jordan Bohannon, playing in an NCAA-record 179th game, was 2-of-7 from 3-point distance and scored six points.

The result was eerily similar to the last time Iowa won the Big Ten tourney. The Hawkeyes promptly lost to 14-seed Northwestern State in the first round of the NCAAs, and the Big Ten title lost luster.

Iowa had seemed poised to have a good chance to play in the second week of the NCAA tourney for the first time in Fran McCaffery’s 12 years as its coach, and the first time this century. Instead, Iowa departed sooner than in its previous four appearances in the event.

Spiders and bad shooting. They both bite.

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