Bullet points!
- Iowa outshot Northwestern in effective FG% 56% to 55%. Iowa made 54.3% of their two point field goal attempts, 41.7% of their three point attempts, but they also hit only 41.7% of their free throw attempts. Northwestern shot 46.8% from inside the three point arc, 42.9% from behind it, and 53.8% from the free throw line.
- In the first match up between these teams, Northwestern scored 46.7% of their points on three point field goals. This time they decided to up that, to 49.3%.
- Iowa also won the rebounding battle 53.7% to 46.3%. On the offensive glass, Iowa pulled down 35.3% of all of their misses, compared to Northwestern's 27.8%. On the defensive glass, Iowa grabbed 72.2% of the Wildcat's misses. While, Northwestern grabbed just 64.7% of Iowa's misses.
- Iowa did lose the turnover battle last night. They turned the ball over on 20.3% of their possessions. Northwestern, on the other hand, turned it over on just 12.5% of their possessions. Most of those Iowa turnovers, were directly forced by Northwestern (and Iowa stupidity), they weren't just travels or passes thrown out of bounds. 10 of Iowa's 12 turnovers were steals by Northwestern (15.6% of Iowa's possessions ended in a steal). Northwestern's defensive philosophy seemed to be "go for the steal, allow basket, repeat."
- Iowa finished 25% of their possessions with an assisted field goal. Good for an assist to turnover ratio of 1.23. Northwestern ended 26.56% of their possessions with an assisted field goal. Good for a 2.12 assist to turnover ratio.
- Northwestern also won in free throw rate. However, they beat Iowa in this regard ever so slightly, 0.22 to 0.21 free throws attempted per field goals attempted. Though, neither shot them very well as you can see in the first bullet point.
- Speaking of not shooting free throws very well. Holy hell, Devon Archie. I've seen people airball free throws before, but they usually go straight and come up short. Archie's, from the TV camera angle anyway, looked like it went almost a foot to the right of the basket. Archie is 6-22 (27.3%) from the free throw line this year. After last night, I'm amazed he's made 6 free throws this year.
- Staying with free throws. Matt Gatens missed 2 of his 3 free throws last night. Gatens is now 60-68 from the free throw line this year. His 88.2% free throw percentage, according to Statsheet.com, is number one in the Big 10. Gatens missing 2 free throws in a game almost seems impossible. I'm halfway tempted to go back and check how many times he has ever missed more than one free throw in a game.
- If you had to pick a star player for Iowa last night, it would probably have to be Cartwright. He didn't have his best shooting performance, scoring 10 points on 5-12 shooting (41.6% effective FG% and 0.83 points per scoring attempt), but he did shoot better down the stretch. Overall, he was the catalyst for Iowa's offense last night. He finished the game with 9 assists and assisted 42.3% of all shots made by Iowa (and probably 99% of the shots made by Jarryd Cole), while he was on the court. He had 4 turnovers, but I can live with the 2.25 assist to turnover ratio. I'm really hoping he can improve on his scoring efficiency next year. If he can put those 10 points up on about 3 less shot attempts, he's going to be really damn dangerous.
- Jarryd Cole had a big game against Northwestern. Much better than his first game against them. He scored 17 points on 8 shots (87.5% effective FG%) and 4 free throw attempts, which was good for 1.72 points per scoring attempt. He also grabbed 8 rebounds (4 offensive and 4 defensive), which was good for a 14.7% offensive rebounding rate and a 13.8% defensive rebounding rate.
- McCabe was Iowa's offense in the first half. When Northwestern tried to put Iowa away early with a barrage of three pointers, McCabe decided to fire back. He only went 1-3 from three point range, but he went 4-5 from two point land, including a nice layup and foul on a clear flop from the Northwestern defender. McCabe scored all 11 of his points in the first half. He didn't do a whole lot in the second half, but he kept this game from getting out of hand like the previous game did. Kudos to the freshman, who has struggled in Big 10 play.
- Onto Basabe. I predicted a double-double for him, and he probably would have had it too. Except, he only played 20 minutes due to foul trouble. Some of the fouls were plain crap, but I'm not going to get into the referees. Melsahn struggled to find his game early, but right around when he picked up his second foul, he put down a thunderous one-handed dunk (just before Fran pulled him, as he does with any player that has two fouls in the first half), and he seemed to get rolling after that. In the 20 minutes he played, he put up 13 points and 7 rebounds (4 offensive and 3 defensive). Translating that into rebounding rate, he grabbed 23.5% of all offensive and 16.6% of all defensive rebounds, while he was on the court. If he wouldn't have been in foul trouble, Iowa probably would have had their second conference road win of the year. Basabe probably would have had that double-double too.
- Gatens returned to his normal form this game, after being in a shooting slump over the last three games. When I say returned to form, I mean he went 3-4 from behind the three point arc and 1-4 from inside it. Not to mention, he played some pretty poor defense at times. Welcome back, Matt.
- Eric May shot a 20% effective FG% and averaged 0.40 points per scoring attempt. That also includes a laser beam layup that he threw off the backboard way too hard. Eric May is lost right now. Maybe we should put some "missing" signs on the back of milk cartons or something.
- While Iowa shot better and made three more field goals than Northwestern did, the Wildcats made 12 three pointers. Those 36 points are the reason Northwestern averaged 1.14 points per possession, and Iowa averaged 1.09. This marks the second time that Iowa has faced Northwestern, shot much better than their season average, and still lost.
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