Bobblehead of justice

IOWA CITY -- Iowa gave students free tickets, pizza, rally towels and a Matt Gatens bobblehead.

The Iowa Hawkeyes gave a roaring Carver-Hawkeye Arena crowd of 14,248 a dazzling display.

Gatens scored 33 points, including the game-sealing free throws with 3.8 seconds left, and led the Hawkeyes (15-3, 7-8 Big Ten) to a 67-66 victory over No. 16 Wisconsin on Thursday night. It was Iowa's first season sweep of the Badgers (20-8, 9-6) since 1994-95.

Iowa rode an 11-point lead most of the night and most of the second half, but you knew Wisconsin wasn't going away.

Fortunately for Iowa, neither was Gatens.

The Hawkeyes hit 57 percent and had 14 assists for 16 field goals made for a 43-34 halftime lead.

But the Badgers tightened up in the second half. The turnovers they let slip through their fingers in the first half turned into aggressive transition points. When guard Ben Brust -- yes, the Ben Brust who signed with Iowa and petitioned and was granted a scholarship at UW -- hit a transition 3-pointer with 12:55 left, the Badgers closed to 51-48.

The 12-2 run was spurred by the bench, with Brust and forward Rob Wilson scoring 11 points in the first seven minutes of the half.

But just as he did in the first half, Gatens picked up the Hawkeyes and gave them a piggy-back ride up and down and all around Carver.

Gatens singlehandedly answered the Wisconsin run with 10 straight points, including back-to-back 3-pointers that boosted Iowa's lead back to 11, 61-50, with 9:10 left in the game.

It was his second straight 30-point performance, but more importantly Gatens' performance gives Iowa's final three games a whiff of . . . just a whiff, mind you . . . a whiff of postseason play. Maybe even NCAA tournament postseason play.

Let's not get crazy. The Hawkeyes are most definitely on the outside looking in. They're 15-13 and 7-8 in the Big Ten and their RPI is DOA.

It goes at Illinois, at Nebraska and home against Northwestern. It's a crazy dream, sure, but so was flying and color TV and the home computer.

The way Gatens is carrying this team, this effort and, well, the way he's making nearly every 3-pointer he takes (he finished the game 7 of 10 from the arc), hey, why not?

After the week Iowa basketball had off the court -- former coaches checking in to bash Iowa basketball either directly or through intermediaries -- everyone at Iowa deserves a little hope for the crazy dream.

Iowa's first half was hard to describe.

Well OK, let's try this. Wisconsin, which was led by 14 from Ryan Evans and Josh Gasser, was a raw chicken dangled over a gator. The "gator," of course, was Gatens. He sunk his teeth into Wisconsin like a Wisconsinite sinks their teeth into gouda.

He scored 18 points and hit 7 of 8 from the field, including 4 of 4 from the 3-point arc. When it wasn't Gatens, it was Iowa off the turnover. The Hawkeyes converted nine UW turnovers into 12 points, three of which were fastbreak dunks touched off by Roy Devyn Marble steals.

Freshman Aaron White scored 12 points and led Iowa with six rebounds, including a few of the do-or-die variety when the Badgers pulled within two points with 20.2 seconds left. Marble finished with 11.

After a week of slings and arrows from ghosts of Lickliters and Alfords past, the Hawkeyes have life. If not for the postseason, then for the future.

Dust that had been settled in Carver-Hawkeye since the '80s shook through the arena. And that is something as this program crawls out of a crater left by previous regimes.

Check that, runs out of the crater.

WISCONSIN (20-8)

Evans 6-13 2-3 14, Bruesewitz 2-3 0-0 4, Berggren 2-7 0-0 4, Taylor 4-8 0-0 9, Gasser 6-11 0-0 14, Brust 4-7 0-0 10, Jackson 0-0 0-0 0, Wilson 5-7 0-0 11, Kaminsky 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 29-57 2-3 66.

IOWA (15-13)

McCabe 2-6 0-0 6, White 5-7 2-5 12, Oglesby 0-3 0-0 0, Marble 3-10 4-5 11, Gatens 12-18 2-3 33, Basabe 2-5 1-2 5, Brommer 0-0 0-0 0, Cartwright 0-1 0-0 0, May 0-0 0-0 0, Stokes 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 24-50 9-15 67.

Halftime_Iowa 43-34. 3-Point Goals_Wisconsin 6-16 (Brust 2-3, Gasser 2-5, Taylor 1-2, Wilson 1-2, Evans 0-1, Bruesewitz 0-1, Berggren 0-2), Iowa 10-18 (Gatens 7-10, McCabe 2-2, Marble 1-4, Oglesby 0-2). Fouled Out_None. Rebounds_Wisconsin 31 (Evans 6), Iowa 29 (White 6). Assists_Wisconsin 11 (Taylor 4), Iowa 18 (Marble 8). Total Fouls_Wisconsin 16, Iowa 12. A_14,248.