Hawkeye men’s basketball team defeats North Florida, 103-78

IOWA CITY — Iowa’s men’s basketball team defeated North Florida, 103-78, Wednesday night at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

The Hawkeyes improved to 5-2. The Ospreys of Jacksonville are 4-4.

North Florida brought some competition. It led 52-51 with 16:50 left, but Iowa was ahead 68-57 with 11:40 remaining after Payton Sandfort stole the ball, drove down the court, then backed up and swished a 3-pointer.

The Hawkeyes never led by less than nine points after that.

Iowa seniors Ben Krikke, Tony Perkins and Patrick McCaffery had 21, 21 and 16 points, respectively. But the player of the game perhaps was freshman center Owen Freeman, who not only had a career-high 16 points, but blocked three shots in the space of three seconds late in the game and had five blocks total.

This wasn’t a blowout. Iowa used a 12-0 run to open a 38-28 lead, and that grew to 45-33. However, the Ospreys closed the first half with a 10-2 run to pull within 47-43 at intermission.

Jasai Miles’ last-second jumper off an offensive rebound beat the buzzer for UNF and made Hawkeyes Coach Fran McCaffery visibly irritated as the teams left the court.

Freeman played 11 minutes in the first half, tallying 12 points and a pair of steals. Perkins had 14 of his points in that half.

The Hawkeyes’ pressure defense forced three second-half 10-second calls against UNF.

Iowa’s next game is Monday at 6 p.m. (CT) against No. 1 Purdue. The Boilermakers play at Northwestern Friday.

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Owen Freeman’s blockin’ gets Carver rockin’ in Hawkeyes 103-78 win

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