Iowa basketball whiffs on another chance to energize fan base, losing 82-65 at Ohio State

Posted by author January 28, 2025 Basketball

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The calendar has almost turned to February and Iowa men’s basketball has yet to win a single true road game this season.

To find when the program last won a true road game, you have to go back to last season. That came against Northwestern on March 2, 2024. It has been roughly 11 months since then.

Iowa’s 82-65 loss to Ohio State on Monday was yet another opportunity that has come and gone.

The Hawkeyes’ 0-5 record in true road games this season is a damning indictment of a team that believed it was capable of greater heights than in 2023-24.

As of Monday, that looks bleak for a Hawkeye team that has now lost four of its last five games.

One of the greatest gifts this Iowa team could deliver was giving an increasingly apathetic fan base reason to believe in the program again. The Hawkeyes (13-8, 4-6) are failing to do so, and there isn’t much time left to change it.

Iowa’s shooting doomed its chances on Monday

The Hawkeyes were a paltry 39% from the field and 28% from deep, far below their season averages. Payton Sandfort had 13 points but was just 5-of-16 from the field. Josh Dix was held scoreless altogether. Brock Harding didn’t score either.

After setting a season-low 67 points against Minnesota, it took less than one week for Iowa to undercut that total, setting a new-worst 65 points on Monday.

Iowa managed to stay in the game by the time halftime rolled around, taking a four-point deficit into the break. That was in part due to Drew Thelwell, who scored 11 of his team-high 20 points before halftime and carried the offensive load along with Owen Freeman.

But things unraveled after the break. The Buckeyes shot 57% from the field in the second half and pounded Iowa 23-11 on the glass as the Hawkeyes’ shots continued to miss. Ohio State led by as many as 25 points in a game that was free of drama down the stretch.

“We went on a pretty big scoring drought,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. “And, as you know, if that happens, then you need stops. But we’re missing, so they’re running on our misses. They got going in transition and they were attacking.”

Even more troubling? Performances like this have become predictable

In its five road losses this season, only one has been by single digits. That lone outing was a roaring comeback against Michigan that fell just short in December. But other than that, Iowa has been largely non-competitive in road environments. It lost to Wisconsin by 31, UCLA by 24 and now Ohio State by 17.

Sometimes, defense has been the more primary issue. Sometimes, it has been offense.

The Hawkeyes let the Badgers drop 116 points in Madison. In its two-game collapse on the West Coast, Iowa allowed USC and UCLA to shoot a combined 63% from the field. In a baffling home loss to Minnesota, Iowa shot 3-of-21 from 3-point range. Then on Monday, Iowa endured similar offensive pitfalls.

The tune might be different. But the song is the same.

“Our shot selection needed to be better (during a second-half scoring drought), plus we didn’t get one offensive rebound in the second half,” McCaffery said. “So when you’re missing shots, you’ve got to get a couple back. And we didn’t do that. We did that in the first half. We got seven offensive rebounds in the first half. Pretty good number. But zero in the second half.”

Iowa needed a season to rekindle energy surrounding the program

Some of the frustration from fans has been built up over years. The Hawkeyes have failed to reach a Sweet 16 under McCaffery despite featuring nationally renowned talent such as Luka Garza and the Murray brothers.

The program has not won an NCAA Tournament game since 2021. It’s now flirting with missing the Big Dance for the second consecutive season, barring an extraordinary turn of events over the next six weeks.

The program’s trajectory has been reflected in the crowds at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, which have been bland far too often. You can point to a handful of theories as to why this has been the case, including the lack of NCAA Tournament success under McCaffery and the rise of the women’s program. It is probably a combination of several factors.

Iowa needed to give its fan base reason to re-engage. How to do that? By winning and winning some more.

Iowa came into the season feeling like that was very much in reach, though many of the national pundits didn’t believe so. The Hawkeyes provided fleeting moments of hope — non-conference wins over Washington State and Utah, taking elite rival Iowa State down to the wire and a miraculous victory over Northwestern.

But the team’s struggles — blowout losses, wildly inconsistent stretches of play and general lack of progress — have outweighed the positives.

Because of it, Iowa risks its fan base’s interest slipping even further. One could argue that apathy is more dangerous to a program than frustration.Iowa is facing that dilemma as it tries to salvage a season trending in the wrong direction.

Follow Tyler Tachman on X @Tyler_T15, contact via email at ttachman@gannett.com