An impressive post season run ended with a lopsided loss as the Iowa Hawkeyes fell to Baylor 74-54 in the championship game of the NIT in New York City. Cold shooting plagued the Hawkeyes all night long as they made only 18 of 69 shots in the game.

Iowa got to within one in the second half but the Bears took control with a quick 8-0 run as they raced away to the victory. Iowa coach Fran McCaffery says going into halftime he felt they were fortunate to only be down by 5 and thought they could get back into it by making a second half run. He says too many shots did not fall as they shot only 27% in the second half.

McCaffery says the struggles on offense affected the Hawks on the defensive end as he says Baylor is a terrific offensive team. But he says the struggles on offense then impacted their attention on defense.

The Hawkeyes made only five of 24 from three point range. “We shot a few too many threes, normally we are a team that has more assists per basket…we were content to try and get it back with a three, and you can’t do that against a team that is this good,” McCaffrey says.

Mike Gessel led Iowa with 13 points. Aaron White added 12 and Eric May had eight in his final game in a Hawkeye uniform. “We didn’t play the way we played to get here. The team basketball we played to get to this point and how successful we were, we got away from that,” May says.

May says he was hoping to end his career with a victory. “It’s just tough to go out like that, I knew it was going to be an emotional night either way, but you don’t want it to happen like that,” May says.

May says the run to the NIT title game was a good way to cap his senior season and says a lot about the team. May says the future for the program is bright. “I’m really excited to watch these guys play and I don’t think many teams are going to want to play Iowa next year,” May says.

Iowa ends the season with a record of 25-13.

Iowa coach Fran McCaffery (2nd from left) holds the championship trophy with other NIT coaches.

The Iowa Hawkeyes are headed to the championship game of the NIT. Eric May’s 3-pointer with just under a minute remaining sealed a 71-60 victory over Maryland in New York’s Madison Square Garden.

May says he was “feeling it” when he hit the late three pointer and he knew it was going in when it left his hand. Iowa’s zone defense slowed down Maryland and the Hawkeyes led virtually the entire game.

“We stuck with it, this team is unbelievable… these guys are good the team we just beat,” May says. The difference in the game was points off turnovers, the Hawks finished with 27 and the Terrapins only two. The Hawkeyes also played well in their halfcourt offense.

May says they had a lot of good play calls and were disciplined and stayed locked in to running the plays correctly the whole game. Iowa coach Fran McCaffery says it was only fitting that May hit the shot that put the game away.

“He’s been playing like that all year long,” McCaffery says. He says he kept looking for a time to take May out of the game, but he was playing so well, he decided not to.

May finished with 12 points, four rebounds, five assists and three steals. Junior guard Roy Devyn Marble had another big game. Marble scored 21 points and added nine rebounds.

McCaffery says Marble had to deal with their changing offensive sets and he was able to handle the press down the stretch. Iowa improves to 25-12 and will play Baylor in Thursday night’s NIT championship game. The Bears topped BYU 76-70 in the other semifinal round game.

The Iowa basketball team leaves today for New York City and tomorrow night’s matchup against Maryland in the semifinal round of the NIT. The Hawks advanced after an 11 point victory at Virginia and this is the first time an Iowa team has gotten to Madison Square Garden in the post-aseasson NIT.

“Well, it’s a tremendous experience in so many ways,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery says. “Obviously purely from a basketball standpoint to be able to go to that venue and continue to practice and play for a championship, it’s wonderful. You’ll have an opportunity to do some things in New York as a team.”

” It’s a great way for a guy like Eric May to finish his career. There will be a lot of families there, they’ll enjoy that type of experience. We’ll have alumni there who maybe haven’t had an opportunity to see us.There are so many positives, but from my perspective, to continue to play in a kind of atmosphere that we played in the other night and continue to challenge our players to handle that and succeed in that type of environment is critical. ”

McCaffery says the extra games are valuable for a team that only loses one senior. “The funny thing about that is it’s great to continue to practice, but our practices are — we’re backing way off. We’ll get up and down a little bit and we’ll lock into the other team. It’s not like the practices this time of year are that beneficial, other than it’s another opportunity to figure out can we put a game plan in, can they carry the game plan out to beat the next quality opponent on our schedule. All of those challenges will help us as we move forward.” McCaffery says.” So additional opportunities for that, additional opportunities for our young guys to play in games. To see how Adam Woodbury played the other night, that was huge for him. Now he gets an opportunity to go against Alex Len, and he’s a lottery pick. ”

Baylor and BYU will meet in the other first round game.