Hawks Snap Losing Skid with 57-52 win over No. 9 Nebraska

Finally, Iowa has their big win.

In what can only be described as a rugby match played on a basketball court, Iowa outdueled ninth-ranked Nebraska Tuesday night, 57-52, to land the biggest win of the Ben McCollum era to date.

Iowa was again led by Bennett Stirtz, who finished with 25 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks in his customary 40 minutes of action. Nebraska briefly tied the game at 45 late in the second half on a Rienk Mast layup, but Stirtz saved his best for last, scoring 10 of Iowa’s final 14 points over the last 7:06 of game time to guide Iowa to their 19th win of the campaign.

The first half was back-and-forth, with neither team able to take hold on the game. Iowa did break the back-and-forth nature of the contest late in the first half and briefly took control, with the Hawks converting at the foul line and Alvaro Folgueiras knocking down a big 3 to briefly extend Iowa’s lead to 9. After a basket from former Hawk Pryce Sandfort cut the lead back down to 7, Stirtz – had to be him – made a 3 with just under a minute remaining in the first half to push the lead into double-digits, 33-23.

But Nebraska’s a tough team – they aren’t a super athletic team but they work hard on defense and they get great looks over and over; sounds awfully similar to this Iowa team – and they closed on a small run to cut the lead to 33-28 at half on a Cale Jacobsen 3 at the buzzer.

The second half can only be described as a rugby scrum. If I wanted to watch rugby scrums, I’d pirate a Six Nations feed off Sky and watch that. The whistles were out in full force against the home team early in the half – Iowa gets by far the worst home whistle in a power conference as officials constantly fell for flailing arms and head bobs, particularly from Jamarques Lawrence – but they disappeared late in the game as everything fell into under-the-rim chaos. The second half was about as physical a half of basketball as I can remember, with Nebraska slowing clawing their way back into the game and leading for two brief moments at 41-39 and 43-41.

First it was Stirtz to tie the game at 41, then Tate Sage scoring on a putback to get Iowa level again. It ended with the Stirtz Show down the stretch, highlighted by a massive Sam Hoiberg error in the final 36 seconds as he fouled Stirtz on a 3-point attempt, as Iowa finally found their way to a huge win to end their short-lived 2-game skid and cemented their NCAA Tournament bid.

Up next for Iowa is a date with No. 24 Wisconsin in Madison Sunday afternoon.