Tony Perkins figured he had another assist or two in him.
The 15 assists the Iowa guard had in Friday’s 94-76 win over Nebraska at Carver-Hawkeye Arena were one off the program record.
“Someone should have told me that,” Perkins said, laughing when he came into the post-game press conference.
Still, Perkins tied B.J. Armstrong for the second-most assists in the program history, and was one off tying the record of 16 set by Cal Wulfsberg. He was the captain of an Iowa offense at its best — 30 assists on 35 field goals.
“That was probably the first time I’ve had 15 assists,” Perkins said. “It felt good. They were in the locker room calling me ‘John Stockton.’ I’ll take it.”
Perkins has been exactly what coach Fran McCaffery expected when he put him into the starting lineup two seasons ago, when Perkins helped lead the Hawkeyes on a late-season run that ended with a Big Ten Tournament title. He has been that rip-and-drive guard that McCaffery wanted, but the coach also knew that he could count on Perkins to control the offense.
“I just felt like he's a guy that you can give him the ball, and you can trust him to run your offense, that he understands the game,” said McCaffery, who picked up his 271st win with the Hawkeyes, tying Tom Davis for the most in program history. “And I think we've all seen him grow in that position.”
“He just finds people,” said guard Josh Dix. “He always has his eyes up and I feel like he just pushes the ball. I mean, he's super fast out there. So he’s just finding people. He makes the game easy for everyone else.”
Perkins said his assist number was growing throughout the game.
“I kept hearing, ‘Assist by Perkins, assist by Perkins,’” Perkins said. “I just started adding up all of the passes and shots they were hitting. ‘I had seven at halftime, OK.’”
He then made sure to inform former teammate and roommate Ahron Ulis, who was on the Nebraska bench.
“I was looking at him, going, ‘That’s 14, that’s 14,’” Perkins said, smiling.
The Hawkeyes (10-6 overall, 2-3 Big Ten) provided their own energy on a night when just a few thousand braved the blizzard outside to come to a game that started at 8:30 p.m. Iowa opened the game with a 17-2 run then, when Nebraska (13-4, 3-3) fought back to take a 50-49 lead early in the second half, the Hawkeyes went on an 18-4 run to take the control back they wouldn’t surrender.
Six Hawkeyes scored in double figures — Owen Freeman had 22 points on 11-of-13 shooting, Payton Sandfort had 19 points, Dix had a career-high 16 points, Patrick McCaffery and Ben Krikke had 12 points, and Perkins had 11. Perkins was joined in the double-double club by Freeman and Sandfort, who each had 10 rebounds.
“Six guys in (double figures), three guys with double-doubles, that’s typically going to equate to a victory,” Fran McCaffery said.
The Hawkeyes shot 52.2 percent from the field for the game, 59.4 percent in the second half, bedeviling the Huskers, who, coming off Tuesday’s 88-72 win over top-ranked Purdue, had no defensive answer.
“It was the perimeter, the inside, the middle, everything,” Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg said. “We were soft tonight. Iowa puts you in a tough position with their movement and you’ve got to be able to talk when you're playing against a motion offense. We weren’t talking out there, we weren’t communicating, we weren’t getting matched up. They exposed us in transition. They were tougher than us.”
“If you walk it up, and let them stack their defense, they’re hard to score on,” McCaffery said. “So we tried to get as much free-flowing action, and transitions.”
The Huskers kept pace with the Hawkeyes after the slow start by getting easy shots inside — 30 of their 36 points in the first half were in the paint. But Iowa’s zone slowed Nebraska during that crucial second-half run.
“Our toughness wasn’t where it needed to be to win a Big Ten game on the road,” Hoiberg said.
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