Hawkeye men pound Michigan State 72-52
Iowa City, Ia. — Jarryd Cole made a bold prediction to several reporters when he arrived at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, 90 minutes before Wednesday’s game with Michigan State.
“Get your fingers stretched out, fellas,” Iowa’s senior center said. “We’re going to give you something good to write about.”
Cole backed up his words, scoring 13 points on6-of-6 shooting from the floor and grabbing nine rebounds as Iowa crushed the Spartans, 72-52.
“I was feeling good coming into the game,” Cole said. “We definitely prepared for (Wednesday).”
The Hawkeyes made 17 of their first 21 shots from the field, built leads as large as 26 points in the second half and shot 57.7 percent from the field.
Iowa coach Fran McCaffery usually goes over the scouting report for the next opponent in the practice two days before a game. But he spent the entire practice Monday on defense.
“We had a back-to-the-drawing-board practice,” McCaffery said.
Michigan State shot just 33.9 percent from the field against Iowa’s inspired defense.
“I think this was the worst performance of a team I’ve coached since I’ve been at Michigan State,” said Tom Izzo, in his 16th season as the Spartans’ coach. “I thought Iowa played pretty well.”
Matt Gatens led the Hawkeyes with 19 points, and became the 40th player in school history to reach the 1,000-point plateau for his career.
“A lot of great names on that list,” Gatens said. “And it’s great to have it come in a game where we win with a total team effort.”
Point guard Bryce Cartwright was a catalyst in the victory, scoring 12 points and dishing out a career-high 10 assists as Iowa improved to 9-13 overall and 2-8 in Big Ten play.
“Bryce is becoming a terrific point guard,” McCaffery said. “He’s always been a scorer. There’s a lot more to being a point guard, especially at this level.”
It was the most one-sided loss for Michigan State this season, and a crushing blow to the Spartans’ hopes of making a 14th consecutive NCAA Tournament. Michigan State’s fourth loss in five games dropped it to 13-9 overall and 5-5 in the Big Ten.
“We’ve put a lot of hurts on people (in past years),” said Izzo, whose team was ranked No. 2 when the season started. “Now we’ve got to man up when people come after us, because they know we’re vulnerable right now.”
Iowa scored in seven of its first 11 possessions in the game. Michigan State scored in one of its first 10 to fall behind 15-2. Iowa had a double-digit lead for the last 34 minutes of the game.
“We looked like we were walking in quicksand early,” Izzo said.
The Hawkeyes led by 20 points less than 12 minutes into the game, and increased it to 22 on four occasions before halftime.
Iowa increased its lead to 26 points on two occasions in the second half, the last with 14:51 left.
“This was our most complete game, without question,” McCaffery said.
Box score: Iowa 72, Michigan State 52
Category: Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball
think it’s safe to say the wheels have completely fallen off of mich st basketball this year. Yikes.
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I bet they recover! A lot of what you saw today was kids who want to believe in themselves finally doing it.
GO HAWKEYES
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NICE WIN HAWKS!!!
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Pappas, I wonder where CyGuy is today? Wonder if he will make a grand appearance today to tell us how bad Iowa is and how ISU is sooo much better. That guy needs life!
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Thinking the same thing … he’s not man enough to show up.
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That’s exactly what I was thinking dave7605! I figured he’d still show up and give us his daily rant of “they suck, they’re the worst team in the world, blah, blah, blah…
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[...] despite the weather,’’ tweeted senior center Jarryd Cole (J-Cole50). “Yall helped us get a great win [...]
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Fran and Hawkeye men, thanks for a most enjoyable evening of basketball. Go Hawks!
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Great win. I love seeing a dejected Tom Izzo.
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Now we know why Izzo thought Iowa was WRONG in getting rid of Lickliter. He know when Ia was on the schedule it was a W for Sparty. Not any more!!
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Only thing that sucked was seeing mediacom logos on the floor. That is just not needed. Court needs to be named after former player/coach. Find other ways to get $.
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Are you kidding me? How bad is Michigan State to lose by 20 to Iowa?!!! Big deal, you beat the worst MSU team Izzo’s ever had. Congratulations. Their 3 best players are no longer on the team. One of them saw the light and joined a REAL team. Allen is a stud. Please don’t make a big deal out of this, you guys still have what…13 losses? LOL!!
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CyGuy,
I’m assuming you know Iowa basketball is a long-term project to become a competitive, viable program. So why do you discount any victory, especially over a traditional tournament team? Iowa can’t help if MSU doesn’t have their three best players. Iowa showed up and played very well. They need credit for that. No, it’s not worth making a big deal, but an Iowa victory still needs acknowledged. Please answer these: Are you trying to find reasons not to acknowledge any Iowa wins? Are you really upset that Iowa has more conference victories than Iowa St by now? Is that your anger? Was it your comments stated in early January Iowa would never win a game the rest of the season?
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CyGuy, you are making a big deal about all ISU’s wins over crappy teams so what is the difference? Oh wait that is right you haven’t beat a real dominate team so you come here and bash Iowa, good for you! Man, you have no idea what you are talking about, this is why I can’t stand ISU fans that hate Iowa. Every ISU fan thinks Iowa fans are stupid and dilusional but look at CyGuy, it goes both ways, both teams have stupid fans and CyGuy leads the pack!
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Gee CyGuy, you seem to make a big deal out of ISU’s record, even though they beat great teams with a record of 0-6, or just one win, yet this win for the Hawks is supposed to somehow be discounted? You really do need to stop obsessing about the Hawks and go find a life. You are an embarrassment to all Cyclone fans.
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C’mon, CyGuy. Fess up.
Deep down in the darkest corners of your meager little soul, you know very well that ISU padded their win column with that non-conference strength of schedule ranked in the 300′s, while Iowa played a much tougher slate.
IIRC, the Hawks’ two CONFERENCE wins are twice as many as the Clowns have in the much weaker B12.
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Well…..not sure who you are talking about but it isn’t their 3 best players gone…..Lucious certainly wasn’t a best player, haven’t followed Allen lately but when he was at MSU he was not a “stud” – he was a head case who could shoot some threes at times and not a bad defender, but he came off the bench. I do agree that their bench is very thin because missing some guys.
I also agree that this is the low point for Sparty BBall in the last several years, but hey the Hawks played well.
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My favorite Troll in the world. Only someone as sorry as you would brag about a program that’s last in the Big 12 (which, last I checked, isn’t as good as the Big 10).
And you bragged about a player who was KICKED OFF a classy program like Michigan State. Nice
Inferior State won’t win a game the rest of the year. Your pathetic excuse for a coach can then take the team to Burger King for the post season banquet and to get the team job applications.
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and Iowa St lost to a very poor team by 25, now which team do you want to be looking at.
Iowa plays in a league that any team can win from top to bottom on any night, with half the conf rated, and the big 8 has what 2/3 teams that should be counted as quality teams, and Iowa St. isn’t opne of them.
Great game Hawks, not a bad game for you either cyguy.
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finally what was the difference here? Better preparation? Shooting consistency? I’m trying to figure out why we have such a bad record in the big ten? Despite it all, I’m a die-hard hawkeye!
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Yes, it was fun to see them clicking on all cylinders. Anyone could see that earlier in the year, even announcers, that the Hawks were going to pick some quality wins once they got past playing their first 8 games vs. some pretty tough competition. A nice win on the road would be good. Could tell we were running out of gas vs PSU late in the first half after jumping out so strong. They are only getting better, and need to continue to the B10 tournament. Need to get out of the cellar though!! A good run over the next 5 would be sweet. Go Hawks!!
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Would you people please stop acknowledging the presence of “CyGuy”? He will go away if he does not get a reaction. Pretend he is not there. Half the comments on here are related to this fool. Ridiculous.
Now for a comment related to the article. The Hawks played well. I think the Big Ten is full of talent and we have the tail end of that talent, but they are still good. They are also young. They need confidence desperately. They got some tonight, you could see it in their eyes. Guys like May and Brommer either are invisible or are playing really well. I thought last night they both played with confidence and did well. Gatens also looked great. Basabe was relatively silent and still the big win. Cartwright is going to be good. He and Basabe are the only people that have the capacity to create when nothing seems there. For some reason, Andre Woolridge comes to mind. He always pulled off some crazy shot clock beating shot off at the last second.
Anyway, I hope we can at least pull off 1 or 2 more this year. That would meet or exceed most expectations. Then maybe a big ten tourney win. I think most people would be encouraged by that finish. Myself included.
Go Hawks! Thanks for giving us something to cheer about.
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[...] the days after Iowa’s stunning 72-52 victory against Michigan State Wednesday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, the story lines nationally and in the [...]
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