Hawkeyes Roll Against UMBC

Iowa Basketball Tops Retrievers, 103-81, Wednesday

Christmas break was coming, and maybe that was something Iowa’s men’s basketball team was thinking about early in the first half of Wednesday’s game against UMBC at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

But the Hawkeyes woke up, made shots, and shut down the Retrievers in the 103-81 win.

The Hawkeyes (7-5), who don’t play again until a December 29 game against Northern Illinois, had five players score in double figures, with three getting double-doubles.

Tony Perkins led Iowa with 23 points. Payton Sandfort had 18 points and 10 rebounds. Ben Krikke had 17 points and 12 rebounds. Patrick McCaffery had 12 points, and Brock Harding had 10 points and 12 assists.

The takeaways from the win:

FROM COLD TO FIRE: Iowa fell behind 26-21 with eight minutes left in the first half, unable to get any offense going.

The Hawkeyes were 2-of-16 from the field during a stretch midway through the half, then closed with a furious run, hitting 13 of their last 15 shots to lead 50-36 at halftime.

Iowa coach Fran McCaffery credited his team’s defense, which had allowed UMBC to build an early lead with a 3-point shooting show.

“Our defense was just better,” McCaffery said. “We were not good at the beginning in executing the game plan. You’ve got to give them credit.”

UMBC was 13-of-25 in 3-point shooting.

“Once we got up plus-25, I thought our defense was like the start of the game,” McCaffery said. “There was no excuse for either one.”

Perkins ignited the first-half run with 12 points in the final 7:45 after being chewed out, he said, by one of the assistant coaches.

Asked if he wanted to say what was said to him, Perkins smiled.

“No, not really,” he said.

HARDING’S NIGHT: Harding was closing in on his double-double when he came back into the game late in the second half with eight points and eight rebounds, something Perkins reminded him of when he got on the court.

“I told him, ‘Go get two and two,’” Perkins said.

The 10th assist was on a dunk by Perkins, and with Harding still needing two points, Perkins gave him an assist for the layup that got him to 10 points.

Harding had the most assists for a freshman since Jordan Bohannon had 13 in the 2017 NIT game against TCU.

Harding’s court vision has been a big part of his fast start as a freshman.

“Guys are cutting, I know where they’re going to be and they know I’m going to get them the ball,” Harding said.

THE IMPRESSIVE STAT OF THE NIGHT: Iowa had 33 assists against just four turnovers. The 33 assists were one shy of a program record.

“Those are impressive numbers,” McCaffery said.

The Hawkeyes came into the game ranked 10th in assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.74.

DEMBELE OUT: Iowa was without freshman forward Ladji Dembele, who was out with an injury, McCaffery said.

“He should be OK in a couple of days,” McCaffery said. “I think tonight would have been a great opportunity for him, but we weren’t going to push it.”