Hawkeyes hammered at Breslin
Posted on 10. Jan, 2012 by admin in Iowa Basketball
By Brendan Stiles
HawkeyeDrive.com
EAST LANSING, Mich. — In what has been a “house of horrors” for the Iowa Hawkeyes over the past two decades, another frightening display took place inside the Breslin Center on Tuesday, as Iowa was clobbered by No. 6 Michigan State, 95-61. The Spartans remain the lone unbeaten in the Big Ten at 4-0 with the win, while the Hawkeyes fell to 10-8 overall and 2-3 in league play.
The performance was enough to make head coach Fran McCaffery slam his folding chair during a second-half timeout with his team trailing by 28 points. Iowa found itself committing 21 turnovers on the evening, 14 of which came in the first half when Michigan State was running away with the game. The Spartans also showed off some red-hot shooting that slightly caught Iowa off-guard.
In the first half, Michigan State shot 19-of-32 from the floor and 6-of-12 from 3-point range. Separate Spartan runs of 8-0 and 7-0 during the game’s first eight minutes forced McCaffery to burn three Hawkeye timeouts before the under-16 timeout finally came at the 11:43 mark of the half with Iowa trailing 23-9.
“We didn’t really expect them to come out and shoot that well as far as from the 3-point line,” sophomore guard Devyn Marble said. “We knew that they were capable, but we were hoping when we doubled, our rotations would be correct and they weren’t.
“When you’re giving a team wide-open 3s at home, they’re probably going to make half or more.”
Iowa would cut the deficit down to 30-22 thanks in large part to freshman forward Aaron White scoring eight straight Hawkeye points en route to a 15-point, six-rebound effort on the evening. But that was when things began to get extremely disastrous.
Michigan State would go on to score 16 unanswered points to climb ahead by 24 and took a 46-24 lead into halftime.
“We were trapping ball screens early, and our rotations were not where they needed to be,” McCaffery said. “It’s a very good passing team and a good shooting team, especially when they’re open.”
Things didn’t get any better in the second half for the Hawkeyes. Their deficit grew to 69-41 when a technical foul was called on Iowa. It led to McCaffery voicing displeasure towards the officiating crew, then later his players with the slamming of the folding chair.
“I wanted them to get their defenders off of them,” McCaffery said.
Iowa ended up with four players scoring in double-figures with White leading the way with his 15 points, which led to Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo calling him “one hell of a player” after the game.
“He said the same thing to me when we shook hands at the end of the game,” White said. “He’s one of the big-time faces in college basketball. For him to say something like that about me, it means a lot.”
Marble had 12 points and a team-high eight rebounds, but shot 4-of-15 from the floor. Gatens finished with 11 points and sophomore forward Melsahn Basabe had 10 points.
Iowa returns home to face its third straight ranked opponent when No. 13 Michigan visits Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Jan. 14 for the teams’ lone meeting of the season. Tip-off is set for 12 p.m. Central and the game will be aired nationally on the Big Ten Network.
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