Defense and rebounding carry Iowa men’s basketball past Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS — Iowa dealt with the extremes of this Big Ten men’s basketball season in the last four days.

Sunday’s trip to the conference’s cellar was less hostile than Thursday’s Mackey Arena adventure, but by no means comfortable.

Instead of shooting their way past last-place Minnesota (7-16, 1-12 Big Ten), the Hawkeyes relied on defense and rebounding. Iowa (16-9, 8-6) accomplished the feat, leaving Williams Arena with a 68-56 win and remaining one of eight teams with five or six league losses behind first-place Purdue.

Connor McCaffery’s postgame assessment of the box score: “It was a weird game.

“We were missing layups. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a box score where we shot (72) shots and they only attempted 46. That’s unreal. That’s what we needed to do.”

Iowa grabbed 17 offensive rebounds and scored 15 second-chance points. It limited the Golden Gophers to two and two in those categories. The story was told on one second-half possession, when Filip Rebraca, McCaffery and Kris Murray all chased down offensive rebounds, Ahron Ulis eventually rotating the ball back to McCaffery for a 3-pointer and 61-51 lead with 5:21 to go.

“That was probably the swing of the game,” said McCaffery, who made just the one shot but contributed 10 rebounds, four assists and three steals.

No, a Minnesota team playing for the first time since a week-long COVID-19 pause and without injured leading scorer and rebounder Dawson Garcia didn’t give Iowa a Sunday stroll. Still, the Hawkeyes never trailed — and it started with defense. Tony Perkins (seven points, seven rebounds, six assists, three steals) stole the ball on the Gophers’ second possession and converted a three-point play for an early 5-0 lead.

It was 11-2 Iowa after 3 1/2 minutes and the Gophers had more turnovers (three) than points. But that defensive intensity had to remain through most of the game as Minnesota stayed within 32-29 by halftime. It did. Iowa scored 14 points off 14 Gopher turnovers, including 11 steals.

“Things weren’t going our way,” said Rebraca, who finished with 16 points and eight rebounds. “Shots weren’t falling, maybe we’re not getting calls that we wanted to get. But I feel like we’ve gotten to a point where we are mature enough to understand we’ve got to battle through that.”

Kris Murray exemplified that mentality. The Big Ten’s second-leading scorer had 10 points in the first half, but was 4-for-15 from the field. The Hawkeyes as a whole shot 32.5 percent, including 1-for-7 from 3-point range in the game’s first 20 minutes.

So, on the first play of the second half, Murray immediately went to work inside, posting up for an easy layup in the first seven seconds. Those were the first two of his 18 second-half points on 8-of-12 shooting, and he did it from all areas of the floor, as he typically does.

“I knew that even though I wasn’t making shots in the first half, I knew that in the second half I’d be able to get looks and that I would convert them, even if they were tough shots,” Murray said. “I knew my capabilities of making those shots. Honestly, every single shot I took felt good, especially from the 3-point line, so I knew that eventually they would go in. Just kept being confident in myself.”

Murray, like his team, remained engaged in other areas through his shooting frustration. He totaled 14 rebounds (seven offensive) and three steals.

“I was really proud of him, because he missed (11) shots, which he normally doesn’t do in the first half,” Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said. “The ball was spinning out on him. Alley-oops, offensive rebound putbacks, isolation layup at the end of the half — those shots normally go in. So for him to come back and finish it off with 28 and 14 is really impressive to me. Says a lot about him.”

The Hawkeyes have another struggling foe Thursday, an Ohio State team that has lost 11 of its last 12. The lone win? A 93-77 triumph over Iowa, which will want to bring Sunday’s recipe for success back to Iowa City, perhaps with a few more shots falling.

Comments: nathan.ford@thegazette.com