For the first time in a long time, Hawkeyes in bounce-back mode

IOWA CITY — It wasn't your standard postgame question. Every basketball game is played with a basketball. The ball is literally named after the game.

But in the wake of No. 4 Iowa's 74-68 loss at No. 7 Maryland and for whatever reason, Iowa players were asked about the ball during postgame interviews. Maryland has a lucrative endorsement deal with Under Armour and so the Terrapins use Under Armour brand basketballs. Iowa is a Nike school and so it uses Nike basketballs, the favored ball among Power 5 conference schools.

Iowa guards Peter Jok and Mike Gesell said the ball felt different, sort of heavy and more like a 'street ball.'

'It's heavy like a street ball, like an outside ball,' Jok said. 'But no excuses, it just feels weird.'

Iowa had a dreadful night shooting, and at some point during postgame interviews, the ball came up.

During a Friday morning teleconference, Iowa coach Fran McCaffery called the ball question 'absurd' and noted that it was the first time he'd ever heard it. Iowa practiced with an Under Armour ball for three days before traveling to the Xfinity Center.

'I don't know why anybody would ask about the ball,' McCaffery said. 'Idiotic.'

Of course, different schools use different balls depending on its endorsement contract. Nike is the most popular with 43 Power 5 conference teams, including eight in the Big Ten, using that ball, according to a Fayetteville (Ark.) Observer January 2015 survey. Just three schools nationally use the Under Armour ball.

It's also standard procedure for school support staffers in practices leading up to road games to provide the brand of ball a team will use (by rule, the home team picks the game ball). And, you know, as it turns out, all the balls are round.

'It's a little different feel,' Gesell said Thursday night. 'At the same time, it's the same weight, same size. Same shape, too.'

Every aspect of equipment, as you would imagine, is covered in the NCAA rule book. The articles in Section 16 cover everything that has to do with the ball, from the cover ('deeply pebbled leather or composite') to the color (Pantone Matching System Orange 151 or Red-Orange 173 or Brown 1535) to the size and weight ('circumference of the ball shall be within a maximum of 30 inches and a minimum of 29 1/2 inches' and 'weight of the ball shall not be less than 20 ounces or more than 22 ounces').

McCaffery took issue with more how the players' answers were interpreted in media.

'You can't ask the players about the ball and then criticize their answer, which is what happened. Nobody made any excuses, it's just a different ball. It's the world we live in. You go to Wisconsin, they use a Sterling. You go to Michigan, they use a Rock. A lot of teams use Nike, like we do. The Under Armour ball is what Maryland uses. The NCAA uses a Wilson, so you use a different ball in the tournament.

'I would personally like to see a uniform ball, but every school has different contracts with different companies for different reasons. That's not going to change. We practiced with an Under Armour ball for three days before we went down there, so there's absolutely no excuse for any shots that we missed. That was a function of Maryland's defense.'

Maryland is a long, athletic team and aggressively defended the perimeter.

Jarrod Uthoff, the Big Ten's leading scorer, was held to a season-low 9 points on 2-of-13 shooting. After hitting nearly 44 percent from 3-point range in league play, the Hawkeyes (16-4, 7-1 Big Ten) knocked down just 5 of 24 3-point attempts (20.8 percent).

The five 3-pointers tied a season-low for Iowa and the 20.8 percent was the season-low.

The loss ended Iowa's nine-game overall streak and sent the Hawkeyes into a first-place tie with Indiana. Maryland (18-3, 7-2) now rests just a game behind both Iowa and Indiana.

The Hawkeyes will look to get back on track against Northwestern (15-7, 3-6) on Sunday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. As of Friday morning, the UI announced there were just 65 standing room only tickets remaining for the 2 p.m. game (Big Ten Network).

The Wildcats, who fell 76-45 Thursday night to No. 11 Michigan State, have lost four straight and will face their fourth consecutive top 25 team. Northwestern has shot just 26.3 percent from the 3-point arc in Big Ten games.

Iowa lost for the first time since Dec. 10 at Iowa State, a streak of nine games. For McCaffery, Thursday's loss wasn't cause for alarm or a reset.

'I don't panic either way and neither did they (his players),' McCaffery said. 'We take a very busniess-like approach. That's how we were last night after the game, that's how we were before the game. That's how we'll be before this game and after the next game.

'I don't think there's any other way to be. If you get too emotional, one way or the other, it really makes for a long season and it never works. The season is too long and there are too many tough teams, too many challenges before us, so we'll just continue to be businesslike.'

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Power 5 basketball breakdown

(This info is from a Fayetteville (Ark.) Observer post that ran January 2015, in light of the NFL's 'deflategate.')

Nike

ACC: North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, Miami, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Syracuse

Big Ten: Ohio State, Michigan State, Iowa, Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota, Rutgers, Penn State

Big 12: Iowa State, Kansas State, Baylor, Texas, Oklahoma, TCU

SEC: Kentucky, Arkansas, Georgia, LSU, Alabama, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Missouri, Vanderbilt

Pac-12: Arizona, Oregon State, Stanford, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Washington State, Arizona State, California, USC

Wilson

ACC: N.C. State, Notre Dame

Big Ten: Northwestern

Big 12: Kansas, Oklahoma State

SEC: Auburn, Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina

Pac-12: Utah, UCLA

Adidas

ACC: Louisville

Big Ten: Indiana, Nebraska

SEC: Texas A&M

Spalding

ACC: Pittsburgh

Big 12: West Virginia

Under Armour

ACC: Boston College

Big Ten: Maryland

Big 12: Texas Tech

Sterling

Big Ten: Wisconsin

The Rock

Big Ten: Michigan

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com