FINAL: IU 73, Iowa 60

Coming into Saturday’s matchup against the Iowa Hawkeyes, IU’s trusty shooter, senior guard Jordan Hulls was shooting nearly 48 percent for his Hoosier career.

Yet, it took until 6:16 left in the second half of IU’s 73-60 victory against the Hawkeyes for Hulls to score a single point against Iowa this season.

Earlier this season on New Year’s Eve, the Bloomington-native shot 0-of-10 from the floor in Carver-Hawkeye Arena and failed to make it to the foul line in his scoreless performance.

Saturday night, his scoring woes mirrored the struggles his teammates faced early on, shooting 28.6 percent as a team in the first half.

The Hawkeyes gave IU every opportunity they could to let the Hoosiers blow open the game in its opening minutes. Iowa racked up 10 turnovers in less than 10 minutes while starting the game shooting just 4-of-16 from the field, but the Hoosiers could not capitalize.

With 10:03 remaining in the half, IU had managed just 13 points.

And for Iowa, the scoring troubles were even worse. The Hawkeyes scored just six points in the first 11 minutes, and whether it was at his players for struggling to find the bottom of the net or the refs for some questionable foul calls, Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery rarely stopped yelling.

With 10:26 left, his intensity finally earned him a technical foul, but junior guard Victor Oladipo hit just 1-of-2 from the line.

The Hoosiers’ lone bright spot for the half came on the defensive end, forcing 13 turnovers, but IU managed just 26 points in the game’s first 20 minutes, going into the locker room ahead just 26-14.

Early on in the second half, the Hawkeyes cut the IU lead to eight by making their first two buckets in less than a minute, but the single digit lead wouldn’t last for long.

Freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell answered with a jumper of his own, and IU’s lead would never dip below 10 for the remainder of the game and hit as many as 17 points.

But IU couldn’t bust the game open completely as they continued to struggle from outside the paint.

Most possessions, the Hoosiers were feeding the ball into the lane in hopes of taking advantage of the abundance of fouls being called as they got to the line 42 times, hitting 29 shots from the charity stripe, but until 51 seconds left in the game, the Hoosiers hadn’t made a single shot from behind the 3-point line, missing their first 12.

Oladipo ended that streak, and Ferrell added another with just 10 seconds left and the shot clock winding down.


-Nathan Brown