Iowa men’s basketball routs Northwestern 82-61 to assure winning Big Ten season

IOWA CITY — It was a sweet farewell.

Senior Night for the Iowa men’s basketball team came with an 82-61 trouncing of Northwestern Monday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Jordan Bohannon scored 18 points in his career home-finale. Connor McCaffery, who along with Bohannon and Austin Ash were honored during Senior Night pregame ceremonies, made five 3-pointers and scored a season-high 17 points.

Ash made a 3-pointer from Caitlin Clark territory with 4:55 left that got the night’s loudest reaction from the crowd. Until, that is, student manager Jack Devlin made a half-court shot during a timeout with 3:53 left.

Iowa’s players swarmed Devlin on the court in glee, and he even traded a chest bump and bear hug with Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery.

Another player who almost surely has played his last game at Carver is sophomore forward Keegan Murray, who has “2022 NBA Draft” written all over him. The reigning and five-time Big Ten Player of the Week had 26 points and 18 rebounds.

With its fourth-straight victory, Iowa assured itself of a winning record in the Big Ten. The Hawkeyes are 11-7 with games remaining at Michigan Thursday and Illinois Sunday. They are 21-8 overall. Northwestern is 6-13, 13-15.

Iowa shot an icy 35.1 percent in the first half and still went to its dressing room ahead 36-17. That’s because the Wildcats were 6-of-27 for 22.2 percent.

Northwestern had scoring droughts of 3:55 and 5:05 in the half. Only one of its players, Ty Berry, had more than two points in the first 20 minutes.

Murray, meanwhile, had 13 points and 12 rebounds by the break.

Iowa had six first-half steals, including this one by Joe Toussaint that he converted into a basket: