Eastern Illinois Stuns Iowa Basketball

Heavy-Underdog Shoots Down Hawkeyes Wednesday

Iowa’s Patrick McCaffery (22) shoots over Eastern Illinois' Kyle Thomas on Dec. 21, 2022 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa. (Rob Howe/HawkeyeNation.com)

IOWA CITY, Iowa - It was easy to point to statistics as to why Iowa lost to Eastern Illinois 92-83 on Wednesday afternoon at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

For Iowa forward Filip Rebraca, it was all about attitude.

“I feel,” he said, “we were a little too arrogant.”

Iowa (8-4) was a 30-point favorite over the Panthers (4-9), who came in with only one win over an NCAA Division I opponent this season.

But Eastern Illinois rallied from a 45-37 halftime deficit, shooting 72.4 percent from the field in the second half while holding the Hawkeyes to just 30.6 percent shooting.

The Hawkeyes will go on Christmas break, and then come back for the return to Big Ten play December 29 at Nebraska, wondering what went wrong.

“I feel like it should linger so it never happens again,” Rebraca said of the loss. “We understand what happened tonight. But when we come back from break, we have to understand this can’t happen again.”

The Hawkeyes were without leading scorer and rebounded Kris Murray for the fourth consecutive game, and also were without guard Connor McCaffery, who had started the last three games.

Coach Fran McCaffery used just eight players, and the five starters all played more than 30 minutes.

The Hawkeyes made just 7-of-33 3-point attempts, and with all of the long rebounds going to the Panthers, Iowa gave up 26 fast-break points.

“We had some long rebounds and got some run-outs,” Eastern Illinois coach Marty Simmons said. “We knocked it loose defensively. There were times when we broke their press and our guys were in attack mode and got a bucket that way. And it certainly gave us a big spark.”

The lack of depth, and the surging confidence of the Panthers, forced the Hawkeyes to scramble for opportunities.

“We started going a little too much one-on-one,” McCaffery said. “We had two assists in the second half, one assist up to the two-minute mark (remaining). So we just tried to do it all on our own a little bit.”

Iowa opened the game with an 18-4 run, but Eastern Illinois kept pace, only trailing 45-37 at halftime.

The Panthers then opened the second half on a 9-2 run, and took the lead when Yaakema Rose’s 3-pointer made it a 51-50 game with 14 ½ minutes remaining.

Eastern Illinois led by as much as 14 points in the second half.

“They had that run, when you want (the lead) to go from eight to 16 points, but instead you go from eight to one,” McCaffery said. “I thought they got comfortable with their offense.”

Rebraca led Iowa with 24 points. Payton Sandfort had 18 points. Tony Perkins had 15 points. Patrick McCaffery had 12 points and 13 rebounds.

Kinyon Hodges led Eastern Illinois with 22 points. Caleb Donaldson had 16 points.

McCaffery wants his players to get away for a few days.

“What happens a lot of time in situations like this is each person blames himself,” McCaffery said. “You can’t do that. Teams win together, we lose together. So don’t blame yourself, but hold yourself accountable.”

“They had a good day,” Rebraca said. “They did a lot of good things. And I think we took them too lightly.”