Cats can't overcome Iowa 3s
IOWA CITY, Iowa - The pieces were in place Saturday for Northwestern to take another step up the Big Ten basketball ladder and stay in position for a postseason bid.
The Wildcats, however, couldn't stop Iowa from stepping back and making 3-point shots at will as the Hawkeyes hit 12 of 30 shots from beyond the arc for a 56-51 win.
The loss snapped a four-game winning streak for Northwestern (13-8, 4-6) and allowed Iowa (13-11, 3-8) to bounce back after a disappointing loss to Indiana.
NU coach Bill Carmody's team did plenty of good things to stay in the game and offset Iowa's outside game:
• The Wildcats forced Iowa into double-digit turnovers (17).
• NU's pesky 1-3-1 zone defense pushed Iowa's shooters away from the basket and limited their drives to the lane.
• They took advantage of turnovers and turned them into transition points (16).
Three things in particular didn't go well for Northwestern, however. The Wildcats didn't get enough hands in the face of shooters (Iowa took only 10 shots inside the 3-point line all game), they couldn't keep Iowa's four-guard unit off the boards (13 offensive rebounds), and all-Big Ten performer Kevin Coble never got untracked (8 points in 26 minutes of play).
Iowa started the game hitting 6 of its first 10 3-point attempts but cooled down a bit in the second half until Devan Bawinkel hit a 3-pointer with 55 seconds to play.
A couple of timely rebounds and solid free-throw shooting (16 of 18 overall and 8-for-8 in the final 28.6 seconds of the game) were enough to close out the victory for Iowa coach Todd Lickliter.
"We got the lead, but we weren't able to sustain it," Carmody said. "They actually got some very good shots in against us and should have probably beaten us by more, because they missed a lot of open looks."
With freshman Matt Gatens putting the clamps on Coble for much of the game, NU senior Craig Moore had to carry the scoring load (20 points). For the game, NU made only 37.5 percent of its field-goal attempts.
Sophomore guard Jeff Peterson (16 points) led Iowa in scoring, and Gatens added 13.
The low-scoring first half (24-21 Iowa) ended with NU on a pedestrian 14-6 run.
"I thought the first half was like a game of H.O.R.S.E. almost," Carmody said.
With Iowa opening the second half scoreless for nearly five minutes, NU was able to get a couple of letters and a 25-24 lead on a pair of baskets by freshman John Shurna.
Iowa regained the lead until freshman Luka Mirkovic put the Cats up 46-45 with 1:29 to play on a 3-point play.
Then Iowa's Bawinkel, who had missed six 3-pointers after making his first two, connected with 39.9 seconds left to put Iowa ahead for good, 48-46. Missed shots and turnovers forced NU to foul, and Iowa's guards knocked down free throws to seal the win.