Finally! IU grabs first Big Ten road win

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- The men's basketball team did something a little different Wednesday night. Against Iowa in Carver-Hawkeye Arena, the Hoosiers picked up a halftime lead.\nAnd this time, they didn't squander it.\nFor the first time in seven tries, and not since Dec. 31, 2002, IU picked up a road win against the Iowa Hawkeyes, 79-63.\n"You'd have thought we won the Big Ten championship in there," senior guard Kyle Hornsby said, leaving the locker room after the game. "It just feels good to come into someone else's place and get a win."\nDespite having a 10-point lead going into halftime, it appeared as if history was going to repeat itself. Last Saturday in the loss against Wisconsin, the Hoosiers (16-9, 6-6 Big Ten) had an eight-point lead at the half, but the Badgers scored on their first four possessions to go ahead in the game. IU didn't recover.\nPerhaps it was IU coach Mike Davis who spent the week publicly calling out his team to perform better, that affected the Hoosiers, or perhaps it was the must-win situation IU had put itself in. Either way, the Hoosiers regained composure following the initial shock of Iowa scoring the first seven points to start the second half.\nAfter letting the Hawkeyes (13-9, 5-6) close the gap to three in just over a minute, freshman guard Bracey Wright, who finished with a team-high 18 points and nine rebounds, scored on the put-back off a junior center George Leach miss that sent IU on an 8-2 scoring run in the second half.\n"That run just showed how we have learned and changed as a team," said senior guard Tom Coverdale, who finished with 17 points. "That's happened to us two or three times when we've been up at half, and they came right back and we didn't respond. Tonight we responded."\nIU had a 10-point lead once again with 14:40 left in the second half, when the Hoosiers and the Hawkeyes answered each other with back-to-back three-pointers. The closest Iowa came was eight with 14:30 to play. The Hoosiers led by as much as 17 in the game after senior forward Jeff Newton, who finished with 16 points, sank two free throws in the final seconds of the game.\nDespite losing the rebounding game by nine (40-31), IU adjusted offensively by dishing out 20 assists and turning the ball over a mere five times. The Hoosiers ended with just over 55 percent from the field and hit 10-of-21 three-point shots, including 5-for-8 from Coverdale. IU also enjoyed resurgence from Leach, who finished with 14 points, four blocked shots and four rebounds.\n"It's team basketball. We spaced them out, we passed the basketball, we hit the open people (and) we drove in," Davis said. "If you can score 29 baskets with 20 assists that tells you that we played team basketball tonight."\nThe Hoosiers jumped on Iowa quickly to start the game. With just over two minutes into the game, IU had built a six-point lead thanks to scores on three consecutive possessions. The first half lead for the Hoosiers extended to as many as 14 before the Hawkeyes cut it to five with 3:06 left before break. Leach, Newton and Coverdale each scored in the final two minutes of the half to secure a double-digit lead.\n"I feel like we had a lot of energy," Hornsby said. "Everyone was pulling for everybody, (we) had a lot of energy coming from the bench and everybody played hard. We still made some mistakes, but we did better"