College Basketball

Recap: Iowa Basketball Collapses In Second Half Against Michigan State

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 12:22 p.m. ET

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Fansided, Jeremy Karll/FanSided via Dear Old Gold

Michigan State handed Iowa basketball their second straight loss on Saturday night, 77-66.

In a game featuring many of the Big Ten’s best freshmen, Michigan State’s freshmen simply out-played Iowa basketball‘s in the Hawkeyes 77-66 loss.

Miles Bridges, Nick Ward, Joshua Langford and Cassius Winston combined for 53 points, 23 rebounds, 12 assists and five blocks compared to Tyler Cook, Cordell Pemsl, Jordan Bohannon, Isaiah Moss and Ryan Kriener recording 29 points, 16 rebounds, one assist and two blocks.

Michigan State’s hostile environment got to a young Iowa team early in their loss. The game started with sloppy play on both ends and Peter Jok and Jordan Bohannon seemingly falling for the student section’s fake shot clock countdown.

Despite the rough start in the first half, Michigan State (15-10, 7-5 B10) gave Iowa (14-12, 6-7 B10) an opportunity to pull away by turning the ball over 12 times and only having center Nick Ward for four minutes because of foul trouble. The Hawkeyes didn’t take advantage and only led 32-31 heading into the half.

Despite the Hawkeyes scoring 13 points off turnovers in the first half, they still had trouble controlling star freshman Miles Bridges and dealing with Michigan State’s size in the paint.

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Bridges scored 14 points on 6-of-10 shooting and grabbed five rebounds in the first half. He showed his versatile scoring by knocking down a pair of corner threes, hammering home a vicious dunk early in the game and scoring from cutting to the basket on one of Michigan State’s nine first half assists.

With Ward, who finished with 14 points and five rebounds after only playing four minutes in the first half, back in the second half, Bridges didn’t need to score as much in the second half. He still finished with 16 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks, though.

Also, Peter Jok didn’t score until 1:57 remained in the half, while Jordan Bohannon only played six minutes in the first half because he picked up two fouls. Christian Williams played very well in Bohannon’s place, as he finished with four points, three rebounds and three steals, but the Hawkeyes missed their two best three-point shooters.

In fact, Michigan State held Bohannon scoreless for the first time in his career and Jok to only 2-of-11 shooting and 0-of-5 three-point shooting on the night. As a team, Iowa only shot 19 percent from three and 32.8 percent from the field, yet continued to take contested outside shots as they rarely had an open look in the paint.

Once they stopped getting as many opportunities from Michigan State’s turnovers in the second half, the Hawkeyes struggled to stay close. Their poor shooting caught up to them and Michigan State’s size and athleticism became too much to handle on the defensive end.

Tyler Cook scored 13 points and Cordell Pemsl added 10 points off the bench, but Iowa had no easy looks in the paint. At the same time, Michigan State started to consistently find open looks down low and on the perimeter in the second half when the pace sped up.

It went from a 40-39 deficit for the Hawkeyes to a 10-point deficit in less than five minutes, with Michigan State leading 55-45 with 11:01 left. The Spartans ended up leading by as many as 16 and never lost control of the game.

Give credit to Michigan State for fixing their turnover problem and not shooting themselves in the foot as often in the second half, but Iowa also showed their youth by never being able to gain control of the game, even when leading in the first half, and letting the crowd noise get to them.

This loss drops the Hawkeyes into a tie with Penn State for sixth place in the Big Ten. They have a week off before hosting the struggling Illinois Fighting Illini next Saturday.

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