Iowa Basketball Rolls Over SEMO

Filip Rebraca, Payton Sandfort Lead Hawkeyes' Offensive Explosion

Iowa's Payton Sandfort shoots a three-pointer against Georgia Tech on Nov. 29, 2022 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa. (Rob Howe/HawkeyeNation.com)

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Fran McCaffery knew Payton Sandfort was due to have a breakout game.

The Iowa coach had to make sure Sandfort knew that as well.

Breaking Sandfort out of his slump was something McCaffery wanted to happen, and it happened in Saturday’s 106-75 win over Southeast Missouri State at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Sandfort scored 24 points on 9-of-13 shooting, his best game of the season after a few bad shooting performances.

Sandfort was just 14-of-55 from the field over the last eight games, but his 3-of-29 shooting in 3-pointers was especially frustrating for the sophomore.

He was 2-of-6 from behind the arc from this game, but that didn’t matter.

“You know, it’s been a really tough stretch,” Sandfort said. “But I’m really proud of myself. I think I really found myself in this stretch, on and off the court. A lot of rough nights, but I just continued to put in the work and that's not going to stop, regardless of the outcome. I'm not going to change who I am or what I do.”

McCaffery didn’t want Sandfort to change either.

“You’ve got to let them play through it,” McCaffery said. “You don't want to yank them and you don't want to get on him. You want to stay positive, which I've done. Because I know how good he is. He's got to know that you believe. He'll never trust his talent if he doesn't think the coach does.”

Sandfort never kept shooting, which was crucial.

“That's something I continued to do over the last few games and it hasn't, I guess, looked great from the outside, but it doesn't matter because Coach wants me to keep shooting,” Sandfort said.

Sandfort missed his first shot, a 3-pointer with 11:07 left in the first half. But when he scored seven consecutive points in the span of 42 seconds, the slump had disappeared.

“I think it was really important for me just to try and find my rhythm tonight, which was nice,” Sandfort said. “I think the most important thing was just having fun again. I've made this just too much, or overthinking everything more than what it is. So just going out there and being me and having fun with my teammates, winning games. That was fun.”

“He missed a few at the start but once (the shots) started falling, it was never-ending,” said forward Filip Rebraca, who led the Hawkeyes (8-3) with a career-high 30 points.

Sandfort said to get through this, he just had to relax.

“I’ve played this game forever,” he said. “And I think the biggest thing I had to get back to was playing like it was a game again. I was just too stressful on myself, just put too much pressure on myself, which then makes the game really hard. So I just had to work through it and find my love for the game again and then just just keep putting in the work.”

“He was real close,” McCaffery said. “He's been playing very well, working hard, staying after it, staying positive. And the thing that I told him was sometimes guys that are good shooters, they get the reputation of ‘OK, he’s a shooter.’ Payton Sandfort is just a really good basketball player.”

Sandfort built on what Rebraca started. He had 11 of Iowa’s first 19 points, starting a dominating show in which he was 12-of-13 from the field while also getting nine points and six assists.

“Boy, that’s a great weapon to have,” McCaffery said.

“I wish it was always that easy,” Rebraca said. “I just took advantage of my size and I was playing harder, so it kind of came easy at times.”

Patrick McCaffery added 20 for the Hawkeyes, who hadn’t played since last Sunday’s home loss to Wisconsin.

Chris Harris led SEMO (5-7) with 19 points.