Short-Handed Hawkeyes Roll

By John Bohnenkamp

Iowa’s injury situation is to the point that when coach Fran McCaffery told center Riley Mulvey to be ready for Tuesday’s game against USC Upstate, he also added some advice.

“He said, ‘Don’t get sick the rest of the year,’” Mulvey said, laughing.

The Hawkeyes won 110-77 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, on their way to a Thanksgiving break that is important just to get healthy again.

Iowa played without center Even Brauns and forward Cooper Koch on Tuesday, and then forward Seydou Traore went down in the first half with what McCaffery called a “bad sprain” of his right ankle.

That’s going to test the Hawkeyes’ depth heading into December, when the competition level increases significantly. Iowa opens Big Ten play next Tuesday at home against Northwestern, and the month also includes a road trip to Michigan, a home game against an Iowa State team that is in the top five nationally, and a neutral-court game against Utah.

“Like I said to you guys a long time ago, I’m comfortable playing 13 guys,” McCaffery said. “So I’m comfortable playing Riley, (guard Carter) Kingsbury. So, next man up.”

“I think the biggest thing is just getting guys healthy, making sure we’re full go,” said guard Brock Harding, who led the Hawkeyes with 20 points and 10 assists for his second career double-double.

Iowa (6-1) was full go from a tempo standpoint right away in this game. The Hawkeyes made their first seven shots behind sophomore Owen Freeman, who used his size advantage to score 12 points in the first 5 ½ minutes.

“I felt like that was something we wanted to do, establish the low post early,” McCaffery said. “(Freeman) was running, he was flying around. When he’s doing that, we're just way better.”

“We knew that they didn't have anybody that could guard him tonight, and I think we did a great job of finding him early,” Harding said.

That momentum kept going as the Spartans (2-7) started to double-team Freeman. That opened up Harding and others, and the Hawkeyes took advantage. They shot 56.4% in the first half, 65.6% in the second half.

That allowed McCaffery to go deep into his bench. Mulvey played almost 12 minutes, and Kingsbury played 16. Freshman Chris Tadjo got more than 7 ½ minutes.

“Games like this can be kind of a trap game for teams all over the country,” Harding said. “Coming off a loss (to Utah State last Friday), going into Thanksgiving break here with a couple of days off coming, it would have been easy for us to say, ‘Let’s relax for this one.’”

Instead, the Hawkeyes finished with five guys in double figures. Besides Harding, Freeman finished with 17, Drew Thelwell had 15, Josh Dix had 14 and Mulvey had a career-high 11 points.

Iowa’s largest lead was 37 points early in the second half.

Now, the Hawkeyes get the time off that they need.

“Get in the training room, and rest our bodies,” McCaffery said. “We’ve got a tough stretch coming up.”