Northwestern picked a poor time to have its worst shooting performance of the season.
The Wildcats (10-7, 1-3 Big Ten) shot just 29 percent from the field including 19 percent from behind the arc in a 70-50 loss to Iowa (12-5, 1-3) on Sunday.
“We’re having a hard time putting the ball in the basket,” coach Bill Carmody said. “Their veterans won the game and I’ve been trying to tell our team the veterans have to (win the game). I just didn’t think our veterans did enough today to make us win.”
Both teams struggled in the early going, and the first bucket of the game wasn’t scored until more than two minutes in. The game remained relatively close until Iowa went on a 14-4 run over the last seven minutes of the half to break the game open. The Cats only made five field goals in the first half – as many as the Hawkeyes made during their 14-4 run.
The Cats’ biggest issue on defense remained inside the paint, where the Hawkeyes scored 12 of their 25 first-half points. Many of those came off dunks as Iowa slammed home four attempts deep in the paint. By the end of the game, the Hawkeyes had scored 40 points in the paint compared to NU’s 18.
“I thought that (freshman center Alex Olah) would have come along,” Carmody said. “If he got the ball inside he would be able to score a little bit. He’s shying away from stuff and he’s trying to avoid contact, and he has to try and push through it.”
NU prides itself on having a very high assist-to-turnover ratio and entered the game with the third-best ratio in the Big Ten. However, the Cats only had nine assists to go along with nine turnovers Sunday, a product of sloppy passing and Iowa’s pressure defense. NU caught its own men not looking several times throughout the game, and Iowa was able to come up with the turnovers when that happened.
“We did some things out of the context of our offense which leads to some poorer looks that we shot today,” senior guard Alex Marcotullio said. “Today we over-dribbled, they defended us pretty well. We have to go back to the drawing board, make some adjustments and come out the next game prepared and ready to execute our offense.”
The Hawkeyes’ defense did not give the Cats much room to work their offense. NU was unable to get a lot of quality shots at the end of the shot clock as it tried to slow the game down and run its sets. Carmody said he thought the Cats were dribbling the ball too much on offense, but complemented the Hawkeyes’ play on defense.
Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said he liked what he saw from his defense throughout the game. He said he was proud of how his defense was able to maintain pressure, particularly on three-pointers, but he highlighted Iowa’s effort on the glass.
“The pressure was giving them trouble and they weren’t getting anything easy,” McCaffery said. “We weren’t giving them a lot of seconds. When they get seconds, they make you guard that stuff again and they usually break you down. If you have to guard it for 70 seconds, somebody’s going to get a really good shot.”
Sunday’s contest was extremely frustrating for the Cats, who dropped to 1-3 in the conference, but Marcotullio said the team has to stay optimistic.
“I’d say (the frustration level) is pretty high,” Marcotullio said. “It’s a long season. We have to stay positive and take the positives from every game, but look back and see what our mistakes were both individually and as a team. It’s a long season, and we have a lot of games to go.”
