Iowa-Washington St. Takeaways

By John Bohnenkamp 

MOLINE, Ill. — It was loud. And it got louder as Iowa secured a 76-66 win over Washington State on Friday night at Vibrant Arena.

A crowd of 8,488 showed up to see the Hawkeyes rally in the second half to go to 4-0 on the season.

“The Quad Cities showed out,” said Owen Freeman, a Moline High School graduate who is used to hearing the cheers from the home crowd.

This, he said, was something different. It wasn’t like Wharton Field House, the legendary arena a couple of miles away, but it was just as fun.

“I kind of expected it to be kind of crazy. But, I mean, the Quad Cities showed out. It was, it was unreal. Just one of the loudest crowds I've played in front of.

“Just a lot of fun.”

It wasn’t fun in the first half when the Hawkeyes were missing 3-pointers and free throws while also turning the ball over. But they clamped down on the Cougars in the second half.

The Hawkeyes trailed 59-57 with 4:19 left, then took the lead on back-to-back 3-pointers from Drew Thelwell, his first two field goals of the night.

Freeman led Iowa with 21 points and 11 rebounds. Payton Sandfort had 18.

Other takeaways from the game:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OWEN: It was Freeman’s birthday on Friday, and that, combined with his homecoming, gave him plenty of energy.

Maybe too much.

Freeman got a technical foul in the first half after a dunk, which was his second foul of the half.

But he had 12 points in 18 minutes in the second half.

“He came back and controlled his emotions in the second half,” McCaffery said.

The double-double was the perfect cap on the night.

“This is No. 1,” Freeman said when asked if this was his best birthday ever. “It takes the cake, for sure.”

Freeman missed Tuesday’s win over South Dakota with an illness, and McCaffery wasn’t sure how many minutes he could get out of him in this game. Freeman ended up playing almost 30 minutes.

SHUTTING DOWN CALMESE: Washington State’s Nate Calmese led all scorers with 27 points.

But it was what happened in the time when Calmese got his 25th point and then points 26 and 27 that made the difference in the game.

Calmese scored on a layup with 11:56 to play, and then didn’t score again until he made two free throws with 51 seconds left. He only got four shots in that stretch as Iowa’s aggressive defense shut him down.

“He was really hurting us,” McCaffery said. “We just had to try to take his space away.”

And once the Hawkeyes did that…

“He wasn’t as effective.”

THELWELL TAKES OVER: Thelwell came to Iowa with a reputation of success — he became the all-time winningest player in Morehead State history in his four years there before transferring to Iowa.

He played an integral role in the defense on Calmese, and his threes provided the final ignition to the crowd.

“You need a guy like him to engineer victory,” McCaffery said.

LET’S DO IT AGAIN: McCaffery wouldn’t mind playing another game here, considering the crowd response.

“That’s something we can talk about,” he said. “I think from a business perspective, we've got people that will make those decisions. But I think overall, if you were at this game, you would be in favor of that, obviously.”

“The crowd absolutely played a huge factor in getting us that win,” Sandfort said, and then he laughed, saying. “I'm not opposed to driving up every game at all.”