IOWA CITY — Nebraska entered Carver-Hawkeye Arena red-hot after an upset of No. 1 Purdue. The Huskers left perhaps as cold as the blustery winds that swirled around the region.
That’s because Iowa (10-6, 2-3 Big Ten) pulled off a comfortable 94-76 win over Nebraska (13-4, 3-3) Friday night.
The win was Fran McCaffery’s 271st at Iowa, tying him with Tom Davis for the most in program history.
Iowa won with an especially efficient and balanced scoring attack, as the Hawkeyes shot 52 percent from the field and had 30 assists on 35 made field goals.
“You’re not going to shoot it well if you don’t get open shots,” McCaffery said. “We moved the ball and shared the ball and got open shots.”
Three players — Owen Freeman, Payton Sandfort and Tony Perkins — all had double-doubles.
“That’s typically going to equate to a victory,” McCaffery said.
Freeman, the freshman forward, scored a team-high 22 points on uber-efficient 11-of-13 shooting and 10 rebounds. One of the two misses was on a dunk attempt.
“After he missed that dunk, I told him, ‘You’re trash for that,’” Perkins said in jest. “Because if I would’ve missed the dunk, he would have so much to say to me. … But just a great player.”
Sandfort had 19 points and 10 rebounds. Perkins, meanwhile, had 11 points and a team-high 15 assists. He’s the first Hawkeye men’s player with 15 assists in a game since B.J. Armstrong in 1989.
“They were in the locker room calling me John Stockton,” Perkins said after the game. “I’ll take it.”
Josh Dix also had an impressive night, scoring a career-high 16 points on 5-of-8 shooting. All five of the sophom*ore guard’s makes were from long range.
"He was absolutely spectacular tonight,“ McCaffery said. ”No question.“
After a close start to the second half, which included four lead changes, the Hawkeyes pulled away with a 20-6 run to expand their lead to 13 with 11:41 remaining.
Iowa seemed to break away early in the game, but not for long. The Hawkeyes jumped to a 17-2 lead, which Nebraska slowly whittled later in the first half to one possession. It was 41-36 Iowa at halftime.
“When you dig yourself a 17-2 hole, it takes a lot to climb out,” Nebraska Coach Fred Hoiberg said. “To our guys credit, they did that.”
Iowa kept Nebraska — a 35.5 percent 3-point shooting team before Friday’s game — to just 4-of-26 shooting from deep. Just three days ago, the Huskers made 14 of 23 long-range attempts in their win over Purdue.
“We had some good looks,” Hoiberg said. “I thought we rushed early. … You can’t beat them on their home court when you play their game, and we took, I thought, four rushed shots early.”
Iowa’s defensive success on the perimeter sometimes came at the cost of many easy looks inside. The Huskers scored 30 of their 36 first-half points in the paint although they were less effective in the paint in the second half.
The Hawkeyes’ ability to, as Hoiberg phrased it, force Nebraska to “play their game” was on display on both ends of the court. Iowa had a 16-6 advantage in fastbreak points.
“If you walk it up and let them stack their defense, they’re hard to score on,” McCaffery said. “So we tried to get as much free-flowing action in transition as we could.”
Iowa received some potentially bad news as Patrick McCaffery exited the game with an ankle injury.
"He’s in the training room right now,“ McCaffery said. ”We’ll see how he feels tomorrow. Try to get the ice on it right away, keep it elevated and try to keep the swelling down if we can.“
Friday’s game was in front of an especially sparse crowd as a blizzard kept many fans away from attending. McCaffery was “impressed” with the crowd given the extraordinary weather circ*mstances.
“You drove here, I drove here,” McCaffery told reporters. “It’s bad. It’s as bad as I’ve seen. I thought it was going to be like the COVID crowd. … The people that came — they were fired up, and they made an impact. So I was really pleased with that, under the circ*mstances.”
The Hawkeyes will look for their third straight win Monday at Minnesota after starting Big Ten play with three straight losses.
“We learned a lot,” McCaffery said. “That’s what you have to do. When you go 0-3, what did you learn? What do you have to correct?"
Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com
