Fran McCaffery
The eighth ranked Iowa Hawkeyes are wilting in the heat of a championship race and their Big Ten title hopes are fading. Leading by six midway through the second half the Hawkeyes collapsed down the stetch and lost to Wisconsin 67-59.
It was Iowa’s first home loss of the season.
“We had some great looks at it but did a very poor job of managing the clock down the stretch”, said Iowa coach Fran McCaffery. “We can’t be settling for threes and we just did not execute very well.”
Iowa manged only two field goals in the final 10 and a half minutes as they fall to 11-4 in the Big Ten. They will try to get things turned around Sunday at Ohio State.
“What you are seeing is a team that is playing in spurts defensively. We are playing in spurts offensively and in transition. We are not as consistent as we were earlier in the season and we have to get back to doing that.”
Peter Jok scored 17 of his team high 21 points in the opening half. Anthony Clemmons added 13 as Iowa falls to 20-7 overall.