Nine months ago, Utah ended Iowa’s 2023-24 season in the second round of the NIT. Saturday night, Iowa faced off with Utah again at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and came away with a very solid 95-88 win over the Utes. The Hawkeyes used a dominant second half and a balanced scoring effort from the starting lineup to earn the victory.

Here are three takeaways from the game.

Finishing strong hasn’t always been a strength for this particular Iowa team. The Hawkeyes couldn’t make enough shots (or get enough stops) in their neutral-site loss to Utah State last month and ran out of steam after playing very well against Iowa State for 35 minutes a few weeks ago.

Saturday, Iowa trailed 40-36 at halftime and was down 11 early in the second half after conceding a 9-2 run to the Utes out of the break. The Hawkeyes caught fire after that, rattling off 25 points in the next seven minutes of game action to tie the score at 63-all.

Down the stretch, it was the Hawkeyes who were making shots and getting stops. Iowa outscored Utah 20-13 after the game was tied at 75 with 6:59 to play. Iowa scored 59 points in the second half (to 48 from Utah), led by 16 points from Payton Sandfort, who shot 5-of-8 from the floor and was perfect at the free throw line (6-of-6).

Notably, Iowa scored 59 points in the second half despite shooting just 4-of-6 from 3-point range. After attempting 14 three-pointers in the opening 20 minutes (and making five of them), Iowa adjusted on offense in the second half, attacking the rim more and getting higher-percentage shots — and more trips to the free throw line, where the Hawkeyes went 17-of-24 after the break.

“We were moving the ball and driving the ball [in the second half],” Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said after the win. “We settled too much in the first half. Payton said it [and] he was right, we hit a couple early and started settling.”

“[Then] they don’t have to play defense, they don’t get tired, they come down and they carve you up, they run good stuff. So we kept the ball moving the ball side to side, driving the ball, intelligent screening, back-cuts, that was the difference in the game.”

The sellout crowd at the Pentagon had a noticeable (and unsurprising) Hawkeye flavor, which helped fuel Iowa’s second half comeback. That, as well as the veteran core of this Iowa roster that’s had plenty of experience in these situations — both good and bad — at this point.

“Veteran guys,” said McCaffery on how Iowa was able to turn the game around in the second half. “We’ve got good players, we’ve got good ball-handlers, guys who’ve been through it, [the] crowd was great. I think [it was] a combination of all those things.”

One player who provided a notable spark in Iowa’s comeback effort was senior guard Drew Thelwell, making his third consecutive start. Thelwell didn’t make a basket in the second half — didn’t even attempt one, in fact — but he scored seven points on 7-of-8 shooting at the free throw line.

Thelwell drew five fouls (more than anyone else on the Iowa roster in the second half), although a few of those came late when the Utes were attempting to extend the game. Still, Thelwell’s ability to attack the defense and the energy he brought were key factors in Iowa’s comeback win.

“[His energy] is infectious,” McCaffery said after the game. “Everyone else goes with him, Brock [Harding]’s kind of that way as well. The energy in the building was phenomenal. Drew was right in the middle of that. His defense, drawing six fouls, those are stats that are critical to a team’s ability to win. You do that by driving the ball and drawing fouls and that’s what he did.”

McCaffery also expanded on what he was looking for when he was pursuing Thelwell out of the transfer portal earlier this year and what he’s brought to this Iowa team. “I was looking for a veteran point guard, who could run a team, who could play off the ball and score, guard his man,” he explained.

“I noticed immediately that this kid could play defense, and wants to play defense and wants to play at both ends, that he understands how to engineer a victory,” McCaffery said. “Drew Thelwell is a winner, that’s what I was looking for and that’s what we got.”

The man that Thelwell displaced in the starting lineup — Ladji Dembele — also had some key plays to spark Iowa’s comeback bid. After scoring zero points and grabbing just one rebound in the first half, Dembele had five points, three rebounds, and a steal after intermission. His two baskets came during Iowa’s surge after falling behind by 11 and helped cut a 7-point deficit to just two.

More importantly, he helped keep Iowa afloat in the second half, with Owen Freeman bolted to the bench with foul trouble (Freeman picked up three fouls in the second half and played under five minutes total after halftime). Dembele played 14:10 in the second half and he finished with a +13 plus-minus rating in those minutes, the highest of any Iowa player in the second half.

McCaffery praised the effort from Dembele and fellow sub Pryce Sandfort. “They’re just rock solid, both of them. All they care about is winning. Pryce, defensively, was tremendous. Ladji, boy was he great. [He] had his two big hoops. But then defensively, on the glass, [he had a] big time offensive rebound late, [a] couple in-traffic rebounds, just his awareness defensively was great.”

Recent years have seen multiple standout individual players that served as the focal points for their respective Iowa teams — Luka Garza, followed by Keegan Murray, and then Kris Murray. Those players were superstars at the college level, racking up All-Big Ten honors, winning Big Ten Player of the Year awards, and vying (or winning, in Garza’s case) for national honors as well.

There isn’t a player quite like that on this Iowa roster — but at its best, this is a team that has a lot of depth and scoring balance, with multiple players that can score and pass and put pressure on a defense. Saturday night saw them at something pretty close to their best, especially in the furious second half comeback effort.

All five Iowa starters finished in double figures in scoring, led by Payton Sandfort with 24 points and a game-high 8 rebounds. Freeman finished second on the team with 16 points, despite missing 75% of the second half with foul trouble. “Owen was really on his way to a big-time game, I felt bad when he got in foul trouble like that,” McCaffery said after the game. Freeman finished with 16 points and 6 rebounds.

Josh Dix and Drew Thelwell each added 15 points, with 10 of Dix’s points coming in the second half. Dix did his damage inside the arc in this game, going 7-of-9 on two-point shots and attempting just one three.

Finally, Brock Harding finished with 12 points, all in the second half. After going 0-for-5 in the first half, Harding went 4-of-8 in the second half, including 2-of-2 from deep. His first three gave Iowa its first lead of the second half at 68-67 and his second triple pushed Iowa’s lead to 88-80 with three minutes to play.

When Iowa is moving the ball well, setting screens, and attacking the rim like the offense was in the second half, this becomes a very difficult team to defend because there’s no one player that defenses can key on and try to slow down. Maintaining that focus and that aggressive mindset on the offensive end was key to Iowa’s win on Saturday — maintaining those same things over the next two-and-a-half months will be key to Iowa’s success in the Big Ten.

NEXT: Iowa finishes off non-conference play with a home game against New Hampshire on December 30 (6 PM CT, BTN).

WHO: Utah Utes (8-2)

WHEN: 5:00 PM CT (Saturday, December 21, 2024)

WHERE: Sanford Pentagon (Sioux Falls, SD)

TV: BTN (Chris Vosters and Shon Morris)

RADIO: Hawkeye Radio Network (Gary Dolphin, Bobby Hansen)

MOBILE: foxsports.com/mobile

ONLINE: foxsports.com/live

FOLLOW: @HawkeyeBeacon | @IowaHoops | @CBBonFOX | @IowaonBTN

LINE: Iowa -1.5 (total of 163.5 points)

KENPOM: Iowa -3 (Iowa 58% chance of winning)