Iowa falls in double overtime at Minnesota after second-half comeback

MINNEAPOLIS — He couldn't talk about it, but clearly there was one moment from Wednesday night's 101-89 double-overtime loss to Minnesota that Iowa men's basketball coach Fran McCaffery was very upset about.

In the closing seconds of regulation, with the Hawkeyes up two, Nicholas Baer got a steal and passed to Brady Ellingson in the corner. Ellingson waited, expecting Minnesota players to foul. When they didn't immediately, both he and Jordan Bohannon — running in from the opposite side — appeared to attempt to call timeout.

Instead, no timeout was granted, Gophers forward Jordan Murphy tied up with Ellingson and a jump ball was awarded to Minnesota. The ensuing possession saw Minnesota guard Nate Mason tie the game with a layup and extend the game.

'I can't,' McCaffery said in the postgame news conference, when asked about the attempted timeout. 'Just don't (ask) it.'

Coaches who criticize officiating in postgame remarks are often fined by the Big Ten, so McCaffery had nothing to gain from expressing frustrations publicly that he'd already expressed to the officials on the court.

Both Ellingson and Bohannon said after the game they were calling timeout. Bohannon said he ran to the corner trying to offer an outlet for Ellingson and did his best to get the ref's attention. There wasn't much more for him to do than offer a shoulder shrug and say, 'it wasn't able to be heard I guess. I think you have to have the ref notice you. Obviously there's a lot going on, so it's hard to notice sometimes.'

Ellingson seemed particularly dejected about it after the game, saying, 'I should've called timeout right away,' and that his expectation of a foul was what led to the pause.

'You never want to leave the game up for the refs to make a call. I should've gotten rid of it or called timeout right away,' Ellingson said. 'It's just how the game goes sometimes.'

The most frustrating aspect to the situation for the players was that during the previous timeout, there was a directive from McCaffery to call timeout as soon as the Hawkeyes got the ball back. Peter Jok said that included McCaffery telling a referee what their plan was.

By the time they got to the first overtime, there was a feeling — at least for Jok, who said so specifically — that the game should have been over already.

'To be honest, I thought we won the game already with that timeout. We called timeout. Coach told the ref we were going to call timeout when we got the ball back. You could hear Brady calling timeout,' Jok said. 'After that, I told them we had five more minutes to go and to keep fighting. We did that. We got five more minutes, but they got the best of us.'

That the Hawkeyes were even in position to win the game was a feat in and of itself. Iowa trailed by 13 with 12:28 to go, but after the under-12 media timeout, with 11:52 to go, the Hawkeyes went on a blistering 18-3 run over the next 4:05 to take the lead. It included a scoring barrage from Jok, who had two points at halftime but finished the game with 28.

Iowa made the most of a more active zone press that forced turnovers and led to easy layups and open looks in transition. Jok, Ellingson and Bohannon all credited the team's activity level in that press as the leading reason a win was even on the table.

Jok said he didn't think the failed timeout call carried over in the overtimes — evidenced by Iowa coming back from down five in the first overtime to force a second.

Still, a 15-2 run put the game away for Minnesota. Whether it was physical exhaustion or mental, Iowa wasn't able to finish off the comeback.

'I thought our pressure on defense really stepped up. We got some runouts and we were having good offense. Pete got going. We were sharing the ball. It was a good team effort coming back,' Ellingson said. '(Then) we didn't execute offensively (in the second overtime). I had a bad turnover that led to a leakout dunk. It just happened, you know?'

It was more than just the failed timeout that decided Wednesday's game — 25 points apiece for Nate Mason and Murphy, 17 for Akeem Springs and 13 for Amir Coffey had a lot to do with it, as did allowing 17 points in the five-minute second overtime.

There's no doubt that play had a big effect on the outcome, and the players' reactions make that clear. Still, McCaffery pointed to teachable, positive things the Hawkeyes could take away like second half defense and taking advantage in transition, despite it being 'disappointing in a lot of ways.'

And ultimately, the Iowa players and coaches know that one play, from one game, can't be something that lingers into the coming days — in which a trip to the Breslin Center to play Michigan State awaits.

'You've got to wash it clean. It's the Big Ten,' Jok said. 'We've got another big game on Saturday against Michigan State, so we can't be thinking about what happened tonight. It's going to hurt, but we've got to flush it. That's the good thing about basketball — we've got games coming up.'