Hawkeyes Top Michigan in OT Thursday

Iowa Basketball Wins Third in a Row

BOX SCORE

IOWA CITY, Iowa - The comeback complete, Payton Sandfort ran to midcourt, fist in the air.

Then he and teammate Riley Mulvey had a leaping collision of celebration.

Iowa’s 93-84 overtime win over Michigan on Thursday night at Carver-Hawkeye Arena was Sandfort’s show, with an impressive supporting cast that included a couple of names that haven’t been called a lot this season.

Sandfort, who finished with 26 points, scored 24 in the second half and in overtime. He had his own seven-point run in the closing seconds of the second half to send the game into overtime after the Hawkeyes were down by seven points with 2:18 to play. And then in overtime, it was his three-point play off a Kris Murray airball that gave Iowa complete control of a game that had seemed lost moments earlier.

“There’s no one I’m more happier for than Payton,” said Murray, who led the Hawkeyes with 27 points while playing all 45 minutes. “He deserved it.”

Iowa (11-6 overall, 3-3 Big Ten) is surging after a three-game losing streak, and it’s no coincidence that the Hawkeyes’ response coincides with the awakening of Sandfort, who had been mired in an awful shooting slump.

Sandfort hit the biggest shots in Iowa’s 76-65 win at Rutgers on Sunday, and when the Hawkeyes needed someone to bail them out in this game that seemed to have slipped away, it was Sandfort again.

“He did everything right,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said.

Before the Rutgers game, Sandfort was coming off a three-game stretch in which he made just 4-of-21 shots, including just 1-of-9 3-pointers. He also had an earlier six-game stretch this season in which he made just 2-of-21 3-pointers.

Sandfort was 9-of-17 in this game, 4-of-9 in 3-pointers.

“I think everybody around me knew it was going to click at some point, so I'm just really proud of myself for sticking with it,” Sandfort said. “Glad we got here.”

Sandfort, Murray said, was fuel for the rest of the Hawkeyes.

“When he’s playing well, our team plays well,” Murray said.

“Everybody loves him,” McCaffery said. “I mean, he's just such a

great teammate, so positive. So they’re all rooting for him. So when he's cooking, you know, it definitely improves the energy level of everybody else.”

The Hawkeyes seemed out of it when Hunter Dickinson scored to put the Wolverines (9-7, 3-2) up 77-70 with 2:18 to play, but Michigan would not score again.

Filip Rebraca scored inside to cut the lead to 77-72, then Sandfort took over.

His 3-pointer with 1:02 left cut the Wolverines’ lead to 77-75. Then, after Michigan’s Kobe Bufkin scored to put the Hawkeyes down four, Sandfort launched a shot from the top of the arc that snapped the net as a foul was called on Bufkin. Sandfort’s free throw tied the game.

“We just kind of were in motion, and I came up with the pin-down,” Sandfort said. “Kind of felt (Bufkin) on my hip and just I knew we had to get one up quick. Then I got taken out.”

The overtime belonged to the Hawkeyes, started by a baseline jumper by Sandfort. Then, with Iowa up 82-79, Murray launched a 3-pointer that was tipped and wasn’t going to hit anything. But Sandfort caught the ball and threw a shot to the rim as he was fouled by Bufkin. Of course, it went in.

“I thought (the shot) was low,” Sandfort said. “So I just caught it and threw it up there and got my legs taken out. Got the points.”

“Right place, right time,” Murray said. “That just kind of shows the awareness he has on the court. I don’t know if he saw the basket, honestly. It fired me up just to see him make that play.”

Sandfort was angry at himself for not playing better in the first half.

“I wasn't aggressive enough,” he said. “So I turned down a couple semi-open ones early. And in the second half, I just wanted to be aggressive. make plays.”

Iowa got 42 bench points, but it was who McCaffery used that made a difference. Freshman Josh Dix played 31 minutes, finishing with 10 points. And with Rebraca in foul trouble, McCaffery went to Mulvey, who gave the Hawkeyes almost 13 solid minutes.

“Obviously we got unbelievable play from our bench,” McCaffery said.

Jett Howard led Michigan with 34 points, but he was a non-factor for most of the second half and into overtime. His last field goal came with 11:34 left in the second half, and then he didn’t score again until he hit three free throws with 57 seconds left in overtime.

“Hats off to him, because he was on fire,” said Sandfort, who had much of the defensive duty on Howard in the second half. “He hit tough shots everywhere. So Coach told all of us, ‘Don't let him get one off.’ So I just took a lot of pride in that.”

Now on a winning streak, the Hawkeyes, Murray said, have their “swagger back.”

“Guys are playing well, feeding off each other,” Murray said. “The chemistry is great, and it's this team that didn't stop believing, even when we went on a little skid.”