It's Toughness, And Another Win, For Hawkeyes
It was all about toughness, Luka Garza said, and if there is one lesson the Iowa men’s basketball team has learned this season, it is that.
The shots were not falling in Monday’s game against Wisconsin, and the win was going to have to come from the defense, and if there is another lesson that the Hawkeyes have learned this season, it is that.
The education that has been ongoing continues to pay off in wins like the 68-62 victory at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Iowa (15-5 overall, 6-3 Big Ten), ranked 18th in both national polls won its fifth consecutive game, smothering the Badgers during a 23-5 run to close the game after the Hawkeyes fell down by 12 points with 7:13 to play.
“We were getting stops,” said guard CJ Fredrick. “And we were executing on the offensive end.”
“I think it was just toughness,” Garza said. “We were tough through their run, and we were able to come together and make a run of our own, which was huge.”
The Hawkeyes were flat, and sometimes they had to be shaken from their slumber during some very noisy timeouts.
But Iowa coach Fran McCaffery knows his team can handle that.
“The first thing was you can’t panic,” McCaffery said. “They hit some shots, we had some breakdowns. You have to keep executing, and you have to keep defending. Twenty-three to five to end the game is typically more of an indication of your defense than it is your offense.”
“Wisconsin is a tough team,” freshman guard Joe Toussaint said. “We just had to be tougher.
“We had to get stops. Four stops in a row, five in a row, get stops, get rebounds.”
It’s been difficult over the years for Iowa to out-Wisconsin Wisconsin, but the Hawkeyes did that in their closing runs. They rattled the Badgers with a three-quarters pressure defense.
“I thought we were too tentative against it and it got us out of rhythm offensively,” Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said.
Wisconsin (12-9, 5-5) missed seven of its last nine shots, and then the Hawkeyes would attack.
Toussaint would light the fuse by hurrying the ball down court, and he came up with the biggest play of the night, scoring in the lane as he was fouled. When he converted the 3-point play, Iowa was up 60-59 and would never trail again.
The play was designed to get the ball to Garza, the Big Ten’s leading scorer who would finish the game with 21 points and 18 rebounds. But Toussaint noticed the Badgers were heavily guarding Garza.
“So I took what they gave me,” Toussaint said.
“I think, for him, his decision-making was spectacular,” McCaffery said of Toussaint. “That’s who he has to be — when to go, when not to go.”
From that point, the Hawkeyes were in control, never rattled against a team that has rattled them a lot over the years.
“We don’t care about that,” McCaffery said. “We care about what’s going on right now. And this team has the ability to execute, defense, and continue to fight. They have done it all year, hopefully, will continue to do it, because if you’re going to win in this league you have to do it.”
Iowa stayed a game out of first place in the Big Ten and in a three-way tie for third place. The league seems like a giant traffic jam, and the Hawkeyes continue to pick the right lane to keep moving forward.
“We knew we weren’t going to lose this game,” Garza said. “We had to string together some stops, and we would be fine.”
The Hawkeyes were 20-of-60 from the field, including 3-of-20 in 3-pointers. Similar numbers buried Iowa in a six-point loss at Nebraska earlier this month, a game that seems so long ago.
“We continue to fight,” Fredrick said. “I keep saying the same thing — grit and toughness. We have a group of guys that believe in each other. We don’t give up on each other.”
