Iowa Authors Epic Comeback

Hawkeyes Catch Michigan State Saturday at Carver

Iowa's Filip Rebraca (left) dribbles around Michigan State's Jaxon Kohler on Feb. 25, 2023 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa. (Rob Howe/HawkeyeNation.com)

IOWA CITY, Iowa - The aisles around the arena were starting to clog with traffic, but Iowa’s Payton Sandfort didn’t notice.

It was around a minute to go and his team was down double digits and a sellout crowd at Carver-Hawkeye Arena was starting to thin, but Sandfort wasn’t giving up.

“I think he said, ‘We’re not out of this,’ with like a minute left, or something like that, to our team,” teammate Kris Murray said. “That’s the kind of guy he is.”

Sandfort was right, and a comeback to remember saved Iowa from a slide that was threatening the season.

The Hawkeyes scored 23 points over the final 90 seconds to send the game into overtime, then pulled away in the extra five minutes for a 112-106 win over Michigan State on Saturday.

Iowa (18-11 overall, 10-8 Big Ten) hit five 3-pointers in the final 39 seconds, the last one coming from Sandfort with three seconds to go, to force overtime on a day when it seemed everything the Hawkeyes did was answered by the Spartans.

“Honestly, it was just unreal,” Murray said. “I don’t think we missed a shot in the last two, three minutes of the game.

“A lot of people probably thought we were going to give up, and gave up on us.”

“I’ve coached a lot of games and I've been in this situation before,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. “And you get a sense of, ‘Are they still fighting, or is it me trying to convince them to keep fighting?’ I didn't have to convince them. They were never out of it in their minds. They were never out of it.”

It was one of those comebacks when everything had to go right, Sandfort said. One play by Michigan State in those closing seconds, and the Spartans win.

“We had to do everything, execute perfectly,” Sandfort said. “They didn’t really miss any free throws either (the Spartans were 10-of-12 from the line in the final 87 seconds). So we had to keep fighting. Believe.

“It was an incredible effort.”

The Hawkeyes were down 91-78 with 1:34 to play, 96-86 with 48 seconds remaining.

And then the 3-pointers started falling, and each shot built momentum, from hey-at-least-they’re-still-fighting to hey-they-have-a-chance-to-win.

It was 100-98 when Michigan State’s A.J. Hoggard made the first free throw and missed the second with 10 seconds remaining.

Sandfort’s shot seven seconds later seemed almost inevitable.

“I knew it was good when (Hoggard) missed the free throw,” said Sandfort, who had 22 points.

It was back on January 26 when Sandfort missed two 3-pointers in the final five seconds of a 63-61 loss to the Spartans.

“He was disappointed he missed it up there,” McCaffery said. “But you kind of felt like OK, if it gets a shot again, he's going to make it. That's how I feel about him.”

Asked if he was thinking he would get another chance, Sandfort said, “I was hoping so. But in the moment, I really wasn’t thinking about it. It’s just kind of what I do, rise to the moment. Now it feels pretty nice.”

“He hit the biggest shot of the day,” said Murray, who led the Hawkeyes with 26 points.

Overtime belonged to the Hawkeyes, because of course it did. Michigan State had shot 63 percent in both halves, but made just 1-of-5 field goals in the overtime.

But even with that, after a day of chasing, the Hawkeyes felt like they were still in pursuit.

“It never really felt like we were back tied yet,” Sandfort said. “You’re still fighting back.”

Tony Perkins, who had 24 points for the game, had six in overtime for the Hawkeyes. Murray had four.

Perkins

“I’m not going to lie,” Perkins said. “I thought it was over.”

He then added an amendment.

“I’ve always preached that at the end of the day, we can be down 30, and I still want us to show our pride,” Perkins said. “I always feel like we can win the game. A minute left, down 20, we can still win the game."

The comeback so frustrated Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, at one point during the post-game press conference he pounded the table.

“That was piss-poor coaching,” Izzo said. “Thirteen-point lead with two minutes to go, and we can’t win the game.”

The Spartans’ grasp on the game for so long frustrated the Hawkeyes. Tyson Walker scored a game-high 31 points on 11-of-15 shooting. Jaden Akins had 21 points on 7-of-10 shooting.

“You’ve got to give them credit,” McCaffery said. “They came in fighting. They scored a hundred points, they shot an incredible percentage.”

McCaffery had his own frustration, and it came out when he was given a technical foul by official Kelly Pfiefer. On Iowa’s next timeout, McCaffery wandered over to the baseline near Iowa’s bench and got into a staredown with Pfiefer before being guided back into the huddle by Perkins and Murray.

“I wasn’t even mad at him,” McCaffery said of the technical. “I was mad at the other guy.”

Was the staredown meant to send a message?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” McCaffery quipped.

Someone asked McCaffery why his team didn’t give up.

“That’s a simple answer,” he said. “They’re a resilient group.”

As time ran out, Sandfort ran and jumped in celebration along the baseline by the Iowa bench. He and his teammates then joined students at the other end of the court.

McCaffery hugged sons Patrick and Connor — Connor had two 3-pointers and Patrick had one in those final frantic second-half seconds — then walked along the row of courtside seats and fist-bumped anyone and everyone.

The first question to McCaffery in the post-game press conference was if he had a message for the fans who left early.

The coach paused.

“Thanks for coming,” he said.