Creamed corn: Iowa cans Nebraska

LINCOLN, Neb. - This was a bludgeoning nobody expected.

Las Vegas favored Iowa by 1.5 points entering Sunday's game at Nebraska. The Cornhuskers had lost only three Big Ten games in its two-year-old Pinnacle Bank Arena and the place swarmed with red and smoke.

Then Iowa scored on its first four possessions and the last nine to end the first half. By game's end, fans clearly could hear every bounce of the basketball in a 74-46 Hawkeye victory.

Iowa (17-10, 8-6 Big Ten) began the game 8-2, then led 18-5 less than eight minutes into the game. The Hawkeyes' defense was crisp and challenging, while its offense had good flow.

'We jumped on them right away,” Iowa junior Jarrod Uthoff said. 'We had a great start. We really got into them on the defensive end. We've got a lot of stops in a row and went back at them on offense.”

Nebraska (13-14, 5-10 Big Ten) answered with a 9-3 run that brought the Cornhuskers within 21-14. Considering the teams' last meeting in Lincoln two years ago - when Iowa blew a 16-point lead in a four-point loss - the game was in the balance. Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery called timeout with 6:23 left in the half.

'He just got after us a little bit and told us to calm down and get back to playing defense,” Iowa point guard Mike Gesell said. 'We responded very well to that timeout, and we went on a run to finish out the half.”

The Hawkeyes then battered Nebraska at both ends of the court. Iowa scored on 10 of its final 11 possessions. Aaron White put up the first seven points of a 21-2 run, including his second 3-pointer of the game and a lob dunk from Gesell. Five different Iowa players scored on that run which ended with an Anthony Clemmons layup with 1.7 seconds left to take a 42-16 halftime lead.

'I wish I could tell you (I said) something incredibly intelligent or inspirational, but really it was nothing more than emphasizing some of the things that we did early, that we planned to do in this game,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. 'Kind of get back to the game plan and relax a little bit.”

The halftime numbers displayed that domination. The Hawkeyes shot 51.4 percent (18 of 37) without even attempting a free throw. Nebraska struggled from the floor, connecting on just seven of 31 shots. Nebraska failed to score on stretches of eight and six possessions.

The second half was merely an encore to the first. Nebraska Coach Tim Miles called his team's performance 'unacceptable.”

'You never want to throw your players under the bus, but that was just beyond disappointing,” Miles said. 'That's not what we represent. When I was at Southwest Minnesota State as the coach, to pay for shoes (we went to) the Renaissance Festival in Minnesota for a weekend to pick up trash. If I had the option, I would do that tonight, tomorrow and the next day to pay back the fans for their tickets.”

White scored 18 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for the Hawkeyes. Peter Jok added 14 points, while Uthoff added 11. Nebraska guard Terran Petteway led the Huskers with 16 points but was 5-of-15 shooting. Nebraska's Shavon Shields, who averages 15.7 points entering the game, was held to three on 1-of-6 shooting.

For the Hawkeyes, the victory wiped away the stains of two consecutive losses. It was Iowa's largest margin of victory over a Big Ten opponent on the road since Feb. 24, 1945 when the Hawkeyes beat Wisconsin 68-38. Iowa ended Nebraska's 37-game streak of not allowing a Big Ten opponent to shoot better than 50 percent from the floor. McCaffery's crew now has won four league road games this season and held back-to-back Big Ten foes to fewer than 48 points.

'What we needed was we needed to have a good week, and we needed that,” said White, who surpassed Devyn Marble for fifth on Iowa's all-time scoring list with 1,697 career points. 'It's not like we could have come in here and played OK but lose. We had to have a good week, and I think we understood that as a group and that takes great maturity, great understanding of yourself as an individual and also as a team.

'I'm happy for our guys, and I'm happy for the program, But the next step to that is not getting complacent.”

That starts Wednesday against another border rival, Illinois.

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