Iowa men blow second-half lead against Nebraska
After fouling out with 2 minutes left in Thursday's game, Iowa's Zach McCabe, left, sits with teammate Andrew Brommer as time winds down in the Hawkeyes' 79-73 loss against Nebraska in Iowa City. (Bill Neibergall/The Register)
IOWA CITY, Ia. – Iowa’s Devon Archie had Carver-Hawkeye Arena rocking.
The senior center’s spin move and highlight reel throw-down gave the Hawkeyes a seven-point lead with 11 minutes, 20 seconds to play Thursday. That was about the last Hawkeye highlight of the night.
After Archie’s dunk, Nebraska scored on 17 of its last 19 possessions and recorded its first Big Ten road victory ever, 79-73 before an announced crowd of 10,538. The Cornhuskers entered the game last in the conference in scoring.
“Fairly typical of what we’ve been experiencing all year,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said after his team fell to 11-10 overall and 3-5 in Big Ten play. “We couldn’t get a stop when we needed it. You saw it. It was disappointing. Defensively (Thursday), that’s about as bad as you can play.”
Nebraska entered the game averaging 52.4 points in Big Ten games. The Cornhuskers scored 48 in the second half. Iowa, last in the Big Ten in scoring defense at 73 points in league games and 71.2 points overall, was a perfect tonic for Nebraska’s challenged offense.
Box score: Nebraska 79, Iowa 73
Iowa's Melsahn Basabe is fouled by Nebraska's Jorge Brian Diaz in the first half. (Matthew Holst/Press-Citizen)
“We couldn’t get stops the second half, and it just killed us,” said Iowa’s Zach McCabe, who scored a career-best 20 points for the second straight game.
On the subject of career efforts, Nebraska senior guard Brandon Richards on had the game of his college life. He scored a career-high 25 points on 9-of-10 shooting, including six 3-pointers in seven attempts. Iowa was 6-of-19 as a team.
Nebraska coach Doc Sadler, whose team improved to 11-9 overall and 3-6 in the Big Ten, said he’s had to get on Richardson for not shooting his entire career.
“I’ll take an assist over a jumpshot any time,” Richardson said.
Richardson had made just 12-of-40 3-pointers for the season entering play Thursday, including 3-of-14 in Big Ten games.
“You don’t expect that, but he’s a Big Ten player,” Iowa senior Matt Gatens said. “He’s capable of shooting the ball, especially when he’s open like that. The kid was feeling it and he had a big night.”
Nebraska had 13 field goals and shot 29.5 percent in its last game, a 34-point home loss to Ohio State on Saturday. The Cornhuskers had 27 field goals Thursday and shot 51.9 percent from the field.
“We just couldn’t get stops when we needed them, whether it was Richardson, or guys down low, or (Bo) Spencer,” Gatens said. “All of them. We weren’t closing out on shooters. We weren’t helping each other. It was a lot of things. We had them. We were up at half, and had some momentum. We just weren’t able to put them away.”
Iowa led by as many as 11 points in the first half and took a 38-31 advantage into halftime. The Hawkeyes were still in front 61-56 with just more than 6 minutes remaining, but got zero defensive stops the rest of the way.
McCaffery used man-to-man defense, and zone. Nothing worked.
“It wasn’t just one guy,” McCabe said. “It was all five.”
Category: Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball
That was a horrible horrible loss
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