3 Takeaways on Iowa’s win at Ohio State

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Josh Oglesby stood against a wall outside his team's locker room Tuesday afternoon, and the Iowa senior never has appeared more relaxed. That's what happens when you hit shots rather than take them.

Oglesby, a 6-foot-5 guard from Cedar Rapids, scored eight points and connected on two 3-pointers in the Hawkeyes' 71-65 upset of No. 18 Ohio State at Value City Arena. Oglesby has become accustomed to answering questions about missing perimeter jumpers after struggling during non-conference play. But now that he's asked about making shots, he smiled.

'It's a lot better,” he said.

Oglesby's three baskets all were clutch. Each of his two 3-pointers extended Iowa's lead to double digits. He grabbed three rebounds, including two on offense. He added two assists and no turnovers.

In perhaps the game's most important sequence, Oglesby provided the game's most clutch plays. Ohio State trimmed the Hawkeyes' lead to three points with three minutes remaining and 20 seconds left on the shot clock. Oglesby took the ball near the Iowa bench well past the 3-point line. He drove hard and past the right shoulder of Ohio State point guard Shannon Scott, who let him go into the teeth of the Buckeyes' zone defense. OSU center Amir Williams stayed with Iowa's Aaron White down low, so no defender challenged Oglesby in the lane. So Oglesby pulled up just inside the free-throw line and buried a jumper to push Iowa's lead to five points.

The context of that basket was just as important as the points. Iowa's nine-point lead had evaporated to three in barely 2:30 of game action. Before that basket, the Hawkeyes committed turnovers in four of their previous five possessions, including three steals.

'We were playing tentative for a couple of minutes and we had the lead,” Oglesby said. 'You can tend to play tentative when you have the lead and you just want to wear the clock down. Our coaches kind of said just play aggressive and make the play when it's there. I saw a seam in the gap, and I pulled up and shot it.”

On Ohio State's next possession, Iowa sat back in a two-three zone with Oglesby defending Iowa's right front position. Iowa forced Ohio State freshman D'Angelo Russell into a 3-point attempt from OSU's right wing. Russell missed, and Oglesby moved into the middle part of the lane between Williams and Scott and grabbed the rebound.

Iowa (10-4, 1-0 Big Ten) moved the ball up the court. Oglesby dribbled to his right, past an Adam Woodbury screen. Ohio State's Sam Thompson defended the zone in front of Jarrod Uthoff along the right corner. Oglesby passed to Aaron White on the right block. As the defense collapsed, White immediately flicked the ball to Uthoff, who buried a 3-pointer to push the lead back to eight.

'That's what seniors do, man,” White said of Oglesby. 'He's been in situations. He's a great player. He's got great feel. All the plays that he made were feel plays. If somebody would have stepped up, he would have probably kicked it down to me or kicked it out. He took what was there and that what was there, the jumper. He made a lot of huge plays defensively and he had a huge rebound late. I'm really happy for him. I'm really proud of him, and I'm really happy for the plays that he made.”

Oglesby's shooting percentage inched up to 27.6 percent from 3-point range and he now averages 4.5 points a game. While those numbers are modest, his contributions are not. When his shot hasn't fallen, he takes care of the ball. He makes good passes, even when they don't count as assists. But when they do, he has 30 to only eight turnovers.

Oglesby also had an offensive rebound off a Uthoff dunk attempt that led to a Uthoff basket later in the possession.

'I am just so proud of him. He just keeps battling,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. 'It's funny, in the first half I thought he turned a couple of shots down, but I've said this before, that's who he is. That is part of the ball movement that we talked about. They were running at him and he would shot fake, one dribble, and kick and we end up with a wide-open shot on the other side. If you are a shooter, you have to be able to make a shot off the dribble for yourself or for someone else and that's what he did. I thought his defense was spectacular.”

2. Accepting/rejecting criticism. Widely circulated comments by North Florida Coach Matthew Driscoll following his team's Dec. 22 game at Iowa were met with both indifference and intrigue by Hawkeye players.

Following Iowa's 80-70 win that night, Driscoll delivered an unprompted, scathing review of what he saw from the Hawkeyes during his scout. Here's what he had to say:

'Here's your problem with your guys: Your guys, they get down when they miss a shot,” Driscoll said. 'Coach doesn't get on them, coach doesn't sub them, Coach doesn't do anything. Your guys have to get a little bit thicker skin and understand I'm going to miss some shots but I can't let it affect the next one. Just from watching your games on tape and preparing for this game, that's the one thing I saw is maybe a head drop or some things like that where guys, you could just see. It's not a confidence thing, because obviously they've got guys who can shoot the ball. It's not a confidence that they can't make them. It's a confidence thing where if they miss like one they're like, ‘Man.' So I think that's something that they've got to fix, and I think it's personal. I think they need to fix it.”

McCaffery offered his own thoughts about Driscoll's comments in a Monday teleconference.

'I talked to him about it actually and I talked to our players about it,” McCaffery said. 'I think any time anybody says something that is essentially true based on his opinion and his analysis, which I can only assume that he was asked for maybe he wasn't, I have no problem with it. I thought it was honest. I didn't think it was said to hurt anybody, I think it was said to essentially help our guys to understand. ‘You've got really good players, just play with confidence. This is what I'm seeing on film. This is what I'm reading as an opposing coach.' I think he really meant it to help our team and to help our players. That's how I took it, and that's how I told them to take it and I think they did.”

Iowa's players had different reactions to the critique from puzzlement to aggravation.

'It was interesting,” Aaron White said. 'I don't know how many games I've played, 100-plus games, and I've never heard a coach kind of psychoanalyze a team. It was interesting. ... Umm, it was interesting.”

'I didn't read them,” Jarrod Uthoff said. '(McCaffery) vaguely addressed them. I don't what to take of them. I didn't read them personally. ... I really have no opinion on it.”

'I don't know what to take from that,” Mike Gesell said. 'I've honestly never seen a coach do that before, go through our whole team. I think there was some truth in what he was saying.”

Driscoll's words certainly sparked a reaction. They were spot-on. Iowa played loose and without panic in a difficult road venue against a talented opponent. No matter how ambiguous the comments were received - whether the players mentally rebel or take them to heart - the Hawkeyes played as though they wanted to defy the critique. Whatever works, right?

3. Offensive action.

Iowa's win doesn't guarantee anything for the Hawkeyes in Big Ten play. But stealing the opener on the road at a ranked opponent is a huge confidence boost, especially for a struggling offense that ranked 13th in field-goal percentage.

The Hawkeyes attacked Ohio State's zone with good spacing. The Buckeyes were slow to match up and the struggled in defending both the low and high post. Iowa was effective passing out of the high post and hitting open shooters along the perimeter. When Ohio State moved high, the Hawkeyes often found Aaron White down low. That led to both dunks and free throws.

Iowa shared the ball in both halves and finished with 17 assists on 23 baskets. Officially, Iowa scored only two fast-break points, but Iowa's transition game was effective and usually beat the Buckeyes up the floor.

'I think we were really attacking,” Iowa guard Mike Gesell said. 'They came out in the 2-2-1, and we really attacked their press and they want to slow you down with that; that's what they want to do. We attacked it, and they were back on their heels a little bit.”

'We started the game well, which I thought was critical, when you go on the road,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. 'They are going to press you and zone you and you have to start the game well. I thought for the most part we maintained our composure. We had a couple of goofy turnovers, but we really fought hard.”

Iowa committed 14 turnovers, including nine in the second half. Outside of a stretch where the Hawkeyes gave up the ball four times in a five-possession span, none of them were crippling mistakes.

'We handled the press and moved the ball against the zone,” McCaffery said. 'You can't get impatient and start jacking shots. You have to go side-to-side, high post, baseline, shot fakes and pass fakes. You have to move it and we moved it, and be patient enough to score at the end of the shot clock.

'You want to attack the press but realize that shooting at the end of the shot clock is OK. We understood that, had some great opportunities and had good shot and we made shots. The first thing you have to do is have good shots and then we went back and got some, too. We missed 14 shots in the first half and had eight offensive rebounds, and that was also important.”

3-plus 1. Iowa's numbers.

The Hawkeyes out-rebounded Ohio State 37-29 and led in both offensive (17-15) and defensive (22-17) categories. Iowa hit 17 of 23 from the free-throw line, while Ohio State made 11 of 15. Iowa tightened up on defense in the second half, forcing the Buckeyes to shoot 37.5 percent from the field and just 2 of 13 from 3-point range.

Highly touted (and talented) Ohio State freshman guard D'Angelo Russell scored 13 points, dished four assists and had no turnovers in 32 minutes. But he also shot just 4 of 16 and sank only 1 of 8 3-point attempts.

'I have to give credit to Iowa because they played very hard,” Ohio State forward Marc Loving said. 'They created a lot of turnovers and we were stagnant in the first half. We weren't moving as well as we were in the second half. It doesn't come down to my shots; it comes down to getting the ball to whoever is open at the time and getting the best shot we possibly can.”

'We got off to a hot start and made a bunch of shots and we continued the intensity level on the defensive end,” Aaron White said.

3-plus 2. OSU's Michigan obsession.

During opponents' free throws, Ohio State's video board displayed a block ‘M' logo (as well as an Alabama logo) to rile up the fans into booing the shooter. The first few appearances were kind of funny. Although Iowa and Ohio State have competed in the same league for 102 years, nobody would confuse the series for a major rivalry. But after 10 or more Michigan logo showings, it drifted from funny to eye-rolling to generally pathetic.

Does a program as storied as Ohio State really need to use Michigan to fire up its base against a Big Ten opponent, especially when it is losing? You don't see Wisconsin showing Goldy Gopher or Indiana's pep band chanting 'Boiler Up” during a critical juncture in Big Ten play. Come on, Ohio State. You're better than that. After all, if you really want to fire up the Buckeye base, wouldn't a picture of a smiling Jim Harbaugh do the trick?

l Comments: (319) 339-3169; scott.dochterman@thegazette.com