Fran McCaffrey
The Iowa Hawkeyes bounced back from a loss to Northern Iowa Saturday to down North Florida 80-70 Monday night in Iowa City.
Aaron White led Iowa with 23 points, PeterJok and Mike Gesell each had 12 points and Jarod Uthoff was the fourth Hawkeye in double figures with 10 points. Coach Fran McCaffery says he liked their energy to start the ballgame. “In a game like this when you are playing a team that isn’t deep and makes as many three’s but is that talented, you’ve got to move the ball and you’ve got to keep them on defense,” McCaffery says.
The Hawkeyes have had problems in the second half of games and started slowly again in this game. McCaffery says it’s something they talk about. He says they addressed it prior to the game and at halftime and he says he’d like to think they’d lock up on defense and not give up a high percentage of shots, but they didn’t. McCaffery says they have to be able to break the second half trend where they don’t score and the other team does.
Jarod Uthoff says they had a good practice Sunday coming off the loss and came out strong to start the game. Iowa hit eight three-pointers in the game, and Uthoff says that is a good sign as they prepare for the conference season. “I think we are going to be on the right track heading into the Big 10 season. I think we are going to shoot really well, especially how poorly we shot in the nonconference season, I think we are going to shoot that much better in the conference,” Uthoff said.
Aaron White’s 23 points allowed him to move ahead of Jeff Horner on Iowa’s all-time scoring list. He now ranks 14th with 1,507 points. Iowa moves to 9-4 on the season. They open the Big Ten season next Tuesday against Ohio State.