Rutgers men's basketball falls to Iowa in Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals
The Rutgers men’s basketball team fell to Iowa 84-74 in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament today. The Scarlet Knights’ (18-13, 12-8) stay in Indianapolis has been cut short as the program awaits Selection Sunday this weekend.
Rutgers started the game strong, racing out to an early 8-2 lead just more than 2 minutes into the game. Off a shot from sophomore center Clifford Omoruyi with 15:43 left in the first half, the Knights took a 15-5 lead.
The No. 24 Hawkeyes (24-9, 14-8) embarked on a game-changing run after Rutgers expanded the lead to 6 points with less than 12 minutes left in the half. Fast forward to the 2:45 mark in the half, Iowa took a 12-point lead off a made basket from Keegan Murray.
This was part of a 23-5 run which gave the Hawkeyes the lead for the rest of the game. The Knights got the lead down to 6 points, but a Kris Murray three-pointer meant Rutgers trailed 41-32 entering the break.
For the entire second half, the Knights would try to battle back into the game but failed to bring the deficit down to less than 8 points for the rest of the game. Iowa’s greatest lead of the game was 18 points with 10:19 left.
Rutgers made one last run that came extremely close to making it a close game again. With 6:22 remaining, senior guard Caleb McConnell made a jump shot that capped off an 11-2 Knights run to drop the Hawkeyes lead to 8 points.
Rutgers could not close the deficit further, as a missed layup by senior guard Ron Harper Jr. that would have cut the lead to 6 points that instead ended up in a Tony Perkins jump shot on the other end, ultimately giving Iowa a 73-63 lead.
The Hawkeyes then ran the lead back up to 15 points, effectively ending the game and the Knights’ chances at their first Big Ten championship.
“(Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery) is a great coach. Obviously, (Keegan Murray) was a problem for us from the opening tip, and they had it going,” said head coach Steve Pikiell after the game. “I thought we played like us for about 13 minutes in the second half and kind of clawed back in and then could never really get back over the hump.”
Senior guard Geo Baker left it all out on the floor in his final Big Ten Tournament game of his career, scoring a team-high 23 points to go along with four three-pointers. Omoruyi, Harper and junior guard Paul Mulcahy also scored in double figures.
Only the five starters scored for Rutgers, even as Pikiell played nine players in the loss.
Keegan Murray finished with a game-high 26 points on just 10 made shots while Perkins and Jordan Bohannon each scored 16 points. Each of the nine players to touch the floor for Iowa scored in what is the program’s second-consecutive trip to the tournament's semifinal round.
“Obviously, (Iowa’s) a really good team. I thought we played hard, but we didn’t play like Rutgers, which is defense, getting stops,” Baker said. “I thought they made some really tough shots. They have a lot of really good players, and I thought they made good adjustments.”
The Knights finished shooting 44.6 percent compared to the Hawkeyes’ 49.1 shooting percentage. A big difference was made at the free throw line, with Iowa making 25 of 27 free throws for 92.1 percent to Rutgers making 10 of 14 shots for 71.4 percent.
The Knights will now wait to see whether they are selected to play in the NCAA Tournament, which begins next week. The bracket will be revealed on Sunday on the selection show at 6 p.m. on CBS.
“If we’re not in, I don’t know what to tell you man,” Harper said. “I feel like this team has proved itself, proven that we’ve gotten better day to day. Every time we come off a tough loss, we always bounce back, so this team definitely deserves to play in March.”
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