The Iowa Hawkeyes got off to a good start at 24th ranked Wisconsin last night and led 34-28 late in the opening half. From that point though their Big Ten opener turned into a nightmare. The Hawkeyes made only five baskets the entire second half and the Badgers roared away to a 66-52 victory.
Iowa coach Steve Alford says “it was a bad time to have a really bad half, probably our worst have of the year. You play that poorly in this building and you’re not going to win.” The Hawks at one point were outscored 17-1 as they fell to 11-45 overall. Alford says Wisconsin played the same type of defense, but his team didn’t hit shots. He says the disappointing thing is during that stretch they didn’t get any stops.
Senior forward Doug Thomas came off the bench and had ten points and eight rebounds for the Hawkeyes but a disturbing trend of long scoring droughts hurt their chances. Thomas says they had open looks that just didn’t fall for them. Thomas says it’s up to the players to execute, as he says if they would have done what they did in the first 15 minutes of the game, they would have come out with the win.