Coming into Thursday night’s game against No. 4 Iowa, IU head coach Archie Miller said he knew his team would struggle to contain the top-ranked offense in the country.
The Hawkeyes are led by senior forward Luka Garza, the preseason Naismith College Player of the Year, and averaged 92.2 points per game. But on the back of one of the team’s best defensive performances of the season, IU left Carver-Hawkeye Arena with an 81-69 win.
During a Zoom call Wednesday, Miller said Iowa posed one of the greatest challenges for IU defensively because the team struggled to guard its opponents since the beginning of January. In the first half, Miller’s fears appeared to come to fruition.
Garza was unstoppable from the opening tip.
The Washington, D.C., native started the game a perfect 3-for-3, scoring seven of Iowa’s first 10 points within the first three minutes of the game.
No matter what defensive scheme the Hoosiers tried to throw at the frontrunner for National Player of the Year, nothing seemed to work and instead led to sophomore Trayce Jackson-Davis and junior Race Thompson each picking up two early fouls.
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“I thought early in the game we were soft in and around the rim again,” Miller said. “But the good news was we were able to keep it at a working march.”
Miller said he knew that stopping Garza would be nearly impossible and that even slowing him down would be a tall task. Instead, the key was limiting the production of the Hawkeyes’ role players.
While Garza cruised to 15 first half points, junior guard Joe Wieskamp was the bigger concern for IU. Wieskamp also scored 15 points in the first half while knocking down three 3-pointers as he and Garza combined for 30 of Iowa’s 37 first half points.
During halftime, junior guard Rob Phinisee said Miller put an emphasis on increasing the team’s intensity on defense as the key to getting themselves back in the game. All season Miller has said that IU has to be a team that can take pride in its defense and the offense will naturally follow close behind.
In the second half Thursday, he was right.
After allowing Iowa to shoot 51.7% from the field in the first half, IU held them to just 26.5% shooting in the second half.
While Garza still managed to score 13 points, finishing the night with 28, no other Iowa player made more than two shots and had more than 7 points. Wieskamp managed just a single point in the second half. Senior guard Jordan Bohannon, who came into the game averaging 10.5 points per game, was held scoreless in the contest.
“We got stops,” Jackson-Davis said. “Overall, I thought we did a really good job on defense. They score 95 points per game, and holding them to one of their lowest of the season is really good for us.”
As the Hoosiers got stop after stop, holding the Hawkeyes without a made shot for 11 minutes, the offense found its rhythm.
In a matchup of two of the best forwards in the country, Jackson-Davis appeared to be the more dominant force down the stretch. The sophomore star scored 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting in the second half, as he willed the Hoosiers to the finish line while battling foul trouble all night.
But it wasn’t just Jackson-Davis who helped IU pull off the upset. The guard trio of Phinisee, sophomore Armaan Franklin and senior Al Durham were dominant on both ends of the court, chasing Hawkeye shooters off the 3-point line and knocking down big shots on offense. IU made two-thirds of its 3-pointers in the second half while shooting 60% from the field.
With just over six minutes remaining, Phinisee drove down the middle of the lane and, with a hop step, pivoted to find Franklin waving for the ball in the corner. After threading the needle between two Iowa defenders, Franklin caught the ball and rose up in one motion to drain the open 3-pointer, giving IU a 5-point lead and the separation needed to ride out the upset victory.
“I’m really proud of our guys,” Miller said. “I’m just excited that our team was able to see the benefits of getting back and having a great attitude and working hard in practice and doing some things we’ll need to do moving forward.
