Iowa vs Ohio State Recap

Well, that game was fun. Even though it was a loss, I thoroughly enjoyed watching last night's game. I mean, Iowa led at halftime only to give it up, but come back from a double digit deficit and lose by five to the second ranked team in the nation. I'm not usually a moral victory type of person, but for a young team in their first year under a new coach, I would consider this a great outcome. I predicted a double digit loss, and that's what it looked like would happen when Ohio State went on their run in the second half. But, Iowa played tough and clawed back into the game. They even got within three with thirty seconds left. They didn't win last night, but this team showed a lot of heart.

Now, bullet points!

• I think you know where I have to start. The star of this game was easily Melsahn Basabe. Honestly, I am pretty shocked to be writing this right now. I thought, like most people did, that OSU's Sullinger would be the player to watch. I'm not taking anything away from Sullinger. He had a great game. Basabe, though, dominated the paint last night. He scored 16 of his 22 points in the first half. He only had 6 points in the second half, but he also had 6 rebounds (3 offensive and 3 defensive), 4 blocks, and only 1 turnover. Great game for a true freshman. Not to mention, Basabe's best game of his young career. Hopefully there will be more where this came from.
• Oh yeah. Basabe's offensive rebound rate came out to 24% last night. Only second to his 25.4% against SIU-Edwardsville. His 13 total rebounds in 32 minutes was good for 0.41 rebounds per minute or 1 rebound every 2.46 minutes. In comparison, Sullinger averaged a board every 3.17 minutes.
• Gatens continued his hot shooting from behind the arc. He made 4 of 7 three pointers, good for 57.14%.
• Jarryd Cole also had a good game. He scored 14 points and had 7 rebounds. Cole and Basabe's performances are made even better since they came against a team like Ohio State. Sullinger and Lauderdale are great inside at crashing the boards. Lauderdale is also good at swatting shots. For our post players to have great games last night, is really impressive. 
• Overall as a team, Iowa did what I said they couldn't do. They had a big scoring drought, and it killed them. When Iowa couldn't buy a basket in the second half, OSU pulled away to double digits. Iowa came back, but it proved too big of a hole to dig themselves out of. 
• Ohio State averaged 0.94 points per possession in the first half. Needless to say that is way below their average. In the second half they averaged 1.32 points per possession. They got hot and stayed hot. That scoring drought really hurt Iowa.
• For the whole game, Iowa shot a 48.3% effective FG% and averaged 1.06 points per possession. Ohio State, shot a 61.6% effective FG% and averaged 1.14 points per possession.
• Iowa shot much better from the free throw line against Ohio State. They went 11-14 (78.57%). They shot 60.31% for the whole month of December.
• Of those 14 free throws attempted, Basabe took 11 of them. He had an insane free throw rate (free throws attempted per field goals attempted) of 0.85 against OSU.
• Iowa had four starters in double figures last night. However, the bench only scored 8 points. All of which, came from Zach McCabe. That means that every starter (except Marble) and McCabe had all of Iowa's 68 points last night. 
• I should probably mention that the referees sucked in the second half last night. They didn't cost Iowa the game, the scoring drought did. However, there were some questionable fouls and the loose ball timeout at the end of the game was an interesting call. 
• Iowa out-rebounded OSU 55.89% to 44.11% in the first half. In the second half, both teams had 6 offensive and 9 defensive rebounds.
• For the game, Iowa pulled down 53.9% of all rebounds to OSU's 46.1%. On the offensive glass, Iowa won 45.7% to 37.9%. On the defensive glass, Iowa won 62.1% to 54.3%. This further reinforces the idea that Iowa is a good rebounding team this year. 
• Last night, Iowa ended 25% of their possessions in turnovers and 23.44% of their possessions with an assisted field goal.
• Ohio State turned the ball over on 23.4% of their possessions and had an assisted field goal end their possessions 31.25% of the time.

Wrapping this up, Iowa played as good as they could against Ohio State. They continued to crash the boards, and they played pretty good defense (Sullinger is hard to guard for anyone). Ohio State's team is just too loaded. Iowa turned the ball over too much, mainly in the second half. Plus, Iowa is not a great shooting team. So, when they went cold in the second half, Ohio State pulled away. Credit to the Hawkeyes though, as they did a great job at clawing back into the game. Unfortunately it was too little too late. But, what I think last night showed, is that Iowa is going to compete better than a lot of people had imagined this year. Which means, they are going to upset one or two good Big 10 teams this year. The question is, which teams will they be?