Aaron White scored 17 points as the Iowa Hawkeyes picked up their first win in the Big Ten Sunday, 70 to 50, at Northwestern.
Iowa Coach Fran McCaffrey said the key was shutting down the Wildcats’ “Princeton” style offense. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been in a game where the team I was involved with guarded that any better than we did today,” McCaffrey said. “The key was sustainability and not giving them a lot of second shot opportunities.” The Hawkeyes held the Wildcats to just 29-percent shooting.
Iowa also had little trouble busting through Northwestern’s 1-3-1 defense. “The 1-3-1 was a problem for us last year and we studied it, looked at it on film and practiced against it,” McCaffrey said. “I’m just so proud of the way the guys handled it, no panic. We had a couple turnovers at one point in the game, but overall, you’re going to be okay when you have 22 assists and nine turnovers a game.”
Josh Oglesby broke out of a shooting slump with 14 points. “It’s only a matter of time…he’s too good of a shooter. He’s been killing it in practice,” McCaffrey said. “I’m so proud of him. I just keep encouraging him to shoot and he has a tendency, when he misses one or two, to stop shooting. I’m just proud of the fact that he kept firing. Too see him start hitting…when he’s doing that, we’re a pretty good team.”
The Hawkeyes are now 12-5 overall and 1-3 in the Big Ten. Iowa next hosts Wisconsin on Saturday at 7 p.m. It’ll be Chris Street Night. “Wisconsin’s playing as well as anyone in our league right now,” McCaffrey said. The Badgers (12-4, 3-0) are coming off a weekend win over Illinois.