IU defeats Iowa, 103-89

Sporting a freshly shaved head, sophomore guard Will Sheehey took on a different role for the IU basketball team Sunday evening.

For the first time all season, IU Coach Tom Crean shook up his starting lineup as Sheehey took the place of classmate Victor Oladipo.

No. 16/17 IU (17-5, 5-5) put together its most impressive offensive performance in the Big Ten this year en route to a 103-89 victory against Iowa (11-11, 3-6).

Crean said he isn’t “married” to any lineup, and putting Sheehey in the starting lineup was for matchup reasons.

“We got the lift from Will that we thought we’d get, that we wanted to get, by putting him in the lineup,” Crean said.

Sheehey hit a pair of 3-pointers in the game’s first 3:04.

The Hoosiers had six players in double figures, led by a career-high 26 points by freshman forward Cody Zeller. Coming off a seven-point performance against Wisconsin, Zeller was 11-of-12 from the field Sunday.

“He is the best freshman center I have seen,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. “You don’t see many seven-footers have as good of a feel for the game as Cody has.”

After having a season-low four assists against Wisconsin on Thursday, the Hoosiers had 20 assists on 37 made field goals.

IU had 58 points in the paint against Iowa highlighted by 11 dunks, seven of which came from Zeller.

“The guards really penetrated like Cody said,” senior forward Tom Pritchard said. “They got past their guards and just made plays in the middle of the floor. Verdell was outstanding with his decisions tonight, and it led to a bunch of dunks for Cody and a bunch of drop-offs for us.”

Sunday’s offensive effort was a far cry from the Wisconsin game, as with 0:58 to go in the first half, the Hoosiers had already scored more points (52) than they had in the entire game against the Badgers.

The 103 points were the most IU has scored in a Big Ten game since 1995 and are the most points by any Big Ten team during the conference season.

IU moves back to .500 in the Big Ten as the it heads on the road this week.

In the past two seasons, Iowa has had four of its eight Big Ten wins against the Hoosiers, but the revenge was evident Sunday.

“To have said what was said about us and what these guys have done to us in the past, and to come out and get to a point where we were putting in Ralph (Smith), and Taylor (Wayer), Kory (Barnett) and Jeff (Howard) in a Big Ten game, that’s huge for us,” junior forward Derek Elston said. “Everybody came out with that toughness we needed, and we kind of ran with it.”