Iowa upsets Ohio State 71-65

COLUMBUS, Ohio - When Iowa needed a dose of toughness deep in its game at No. 18 Ohio State, the Hawkeyes definitively proved they can find toughness when it is required.

With momentum and a partisan crowd tilting against the Hawkeyes, not to mention three straight offensive turnovers, Iowa stepped up with three baskets on consecutive possessions to upset the Buckeyes 71-65 at Value City Arena on Tuesday afternoon.

The Hawkeyes (10-4, 1-0 Big Ten) led by eight points with 4:07 left. The Buckeyes chipped away with a pair of free throws and a 3-pointer from freshman D'Angelo Russell to cut Iowa's lead to 63-60. Then Iowa's Cedar Rapids duo of Josh Oglesby and Jarrod Uthoff hit vital shots to lift the Hawkeyes to victory.

With eight seconds left on the shot clock, Oglesby hit a jumper in the lane with 2:56 left to extend Iowa's lead to five. On Ohio State's next possession, Russell missed a 3-pointer and Oglesby secured the rebound. Uthoff drilled a 3-pointer from the corner to push Iowa's lead back to eight. Ohio State's Sam Thompson countered with a three-point play, but Uthoff then knocked down another jumper to push the lead back to five.

'What we wanted to do today was play with some toughness, execute. That's part of toughness,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. 'Toughness isn't pushing and shoving. Toughness is being able to play through the run. Being able to deal with the crowd. Russell hits that 3, cuts it to three (points). Somebody's got to make a play.

'Oglesby was phenomenal, and we get a stop and Jarrod hits a 3 out of the corner. So that's what real good teams do. You make good plays then.”

Uthoff was strong all game, scoring 18 points and shooting a career-high four 3-pointers. He also had seven rebounds and five assists in 36 minutes. Oglesby, who had struggled shooting during non-conference play, hit two 3-pointers and both gave Iowa double-digit leads.

'Huge. Huge,” Uthoff said of Oglesby's performance. 'That's what we need from him. He made some big plays. If he didn't make that dribble pullup, I don't know if we would have won the game. That was a big, big shot by him. That rebound was huge, too. He made a couple of other really, really big plays. I'm happy for him.”

Iowa established the game's tempo from the opening tip. The Hawkeyes scored on their first eight possessions and built a 17-5 lead. The Hawkeyes attacked the Ohio State's active zone defense and found open shots along the perimeter.

'We came into this game expecting to win, and we played like it out there,” Iowa point guard Mike Gesell said. 'You could see it in our confidence right away. We jumped on them, we were able to hold them off the rest of the game.”

'We let them dictate what they wanted to do,” said Ohio State's Thompson, who scored 17 points for the Buckeyes. 'We always pride ourselves on defense, and today we didn't have the type of activity and communication we needed to early in the game to impose our will on the game. We let them get into a good rhythm, and we let them decided what they wanted to do offensively.”

Ohio native Aaron White scored 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds in 37 minutes for Iowa. The Hawkeyes shot 46 percent from the field and was 8 of 22 from 3-point range. Russell added 13 for Ohio State.

Iowa is the first team since Wisconsin in 2004 and 2005 to win consecutive games in Columbus. Iowa beat then-No. 3 Ohio State 84-74 last year.

The Hawkeyes' non-conference schedule, which included five currently or formerly ranked opponents, prepared Iowa for the win, Oglesby said. Even the losses helped.

'You can learn something in any game,” Oglesby said. 'Obviously we learned a lot today, just our toughness as a team and how we well played together today. You just look at the wins and see what you do good and carry that over and what you did bad, work on it.”

The Hawkeyes play host to Nebraska in their Big Ten home opener on Monday. Ohio State (11-3, 0-1 Big Ten) faces Illinois at home on Saturday.

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