Late-clock woes plague Hawkeyes

COLUMBUS, Ohio — One possession seemed to sum up Iowa's day at Ohio State.

With a four-point lead and 3 minutes, 48 seconds remaining, Iowa took the ball from under its basket. The Hawkeyes successfully navigated against Ohio State's trapping defense, and guard Peter Jok had the ball 10 seconds into the possession with an open look near the 3-point line.

Jok chose not to shoot. Iowa moved the ball for the rest of the possession, and point guard Mike Gesell was forced into a difficult perimeter shot that missed the rim and ended in a shot-clock violation. That sequence helped ignite a 12-2 Ohio State run in a 68-64 Buckeyes' victory.

It almost appeared that Jok wanted to run clock in that situation, but Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said that wasn't the case.

Jok, who finished with 12 points, said he wasn't ready to shoot. He was sick for part of last week despite playing against Wisconsin on Wednesday.

'My shot has been short all day,' Jok said. 'I'm still not feeling well. I didn't want to force anything because I knew I was going to be short. So I was just trying to pass it along so somebody else can make a play. That was a big turnaround. We needed to get a shot off there.'

'Pete had a green light,' Gesell said. 'We were running a play for him, and it's disappointing when you don't get a shot up and get a shot clock violation and we had a few of those tonight.'

Iowa (20-8, 11-5 Big Ten) had another shot-clock violation early in the second half. Gesell said the team needs to make changes to its late-clock offense.

'We need to switch up a little bit because it hasn't been effective enough,' Gesell said. 'So we'll look at it.'

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