Iowa Hoops: poor outside shooting sinks Hawkeyes in loss to Utah State

On a second straight Friday night the Iowa Hawkeyes played a second straight back-and-forth game on a neutral site. Unlike last week, the Hawks couldn’t come away with the victory in a 77-69 loss to Utah State in Kansas City.

The Hawks kept the game in range early with defense despite starting 0-9 from three in the first 7 minutes. Seydou Traore came in and made an impact immediately with 2 blocks in his first minute of game time. Despite making just one bucket, Iowa went from down three to up four in his time on the court. Later he came in and manned the top of the zone to supreme effect as the Aggies were throwing passes into the stands. The highlight was an alley-oop from Brock Harding.

While the defensive effort, on the whole, was a strong one, the dam burst in the second half as the rebounding fell off big time and second chance points piled up for the Aggies. They had 8 in the second half and converted them into 14 points. The backbreaker was a heave from Mason Falslev as the shot clock was winding down after the original shot did not draw the rim. I have led the game with 25 points.

That extended the lead to 63-57 with 6:58 left but Iowa couldn’t get it inside two points the rest of the way. A pair of buckets generated by Brock Harding (his own layup and an assist to Owen Freeman) brought it to 63-61 but a well-called timeout set up a basket for the Aggies.

Brock Harding’s best game amidst off shooting night from three

The Moline product posted a team-high 19 points on 8/15 shooting and was the man consistently generating baskets throughout the second half. He made a pair of three pointers early in the second half as the Hawks were hanging onto the lead and added 5 assists. The bugaboo with his game has been his turnovers and he had just 3 of Iowa’s 16, a viable number considering how the game was flowing.

Harding was consistently finding himself inside the funky 2-3 zone Utah State deployed and consistently yielded open looks for his teammates. They just weren’t dropping, as the Hawks went just 5/26 from deep. Yuck.

Personal opinion is those are the types of looks you’re trying to get against a zone. They weren’t the lazy passes around the perimeter punctuated with contested attempts of zone-busting. Yet there were opportunities for Iowa to turn really good three point looks into shots at the rim. Payton Sandfort’s penultimate miss (1/12 from deep) was a wide open corner attempt which he took despite having the whole baseline as a driving lane. Again…yuck.

Where was Traore?

The Manhattan transfer accumulated a team high +9 in 18 minutes but was not on the court down the stretch of the game. It was during the timeframe where Falslev accumulated 8 of his game high 25 points in a six-minute span as they game got out of reach.

Perhaps some of it was Harding playing so well and upsetting the rotation Fran established against Washington State where Drew Thelwell & Traore played over the sophomore but it felt like the game desperately needed his ability to affect the game on both ends of the court.

While Iowa struggled defensively in the second half, it’s worth mentioning that the turnovers were also brutal for the Hawks. Despite 18 points on 9/12 shooting from Owen Freeman, he found himself befuddled by the zone when they were throwing multiple bodies at him on his post-ups. The sophomore had four turnovers, all in the second half. The Aggies made 6 points off of them.

Let’s talk about the defense again

I know moral victories aren’t victories but the Hawkeyes forced 18 turnovers against the team who entered tonight leading the country in turnovers. They scored 95+ points in each of their first 4 games. From an advanced analytics point of view, they held the Aggies to ~1 point/possession after they lit teams up to the tune of 1.44, 1.47, 1.60, and 1.27.

The defense gave Iowa a chance to win tonight (it’s now up to 57th according to KenPom) and continues to look much improved over prior seasons. If they tighten the rebounding up and they’ll continue being a tough team to beat even if the shot isn’t falling.

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Next up: USC Upstate on Tuesday, November 26 at 7p (BTN | Carver-Hawkeye Arena)