Hot-shooting Iowa knocks out UC in first round
Jordan Bohannon yelled in excitement after his threepointer early in the second
Iowa 79, Cincinnati 72
half gave Iowa its first lead against Cincinnati since it was 5-4.
Rewind the clock to 2:43 left in the first half, and the Hawkeyes were down 12 and needing a run to swing momentum. Find a recap of the Ohio Stateiowa State game Friday night at Buckeyextra.com.
That run came as they scored 18 of the next 22 points, and suddenly they were getting just about any shot they wanted. Behind 65.4 percent shooting in the second half, the No. 10-seeded Hawkeyes knocked off the No. 7-seeded Bearcats 79-72 Friday in a first-round NCAA South Regional game at Nationwide Arena.
Iowa, which will face No. 2 seed Tennessee in a secondround game Sunday, had shot less than 40 percent in three of its past five games entering its first NCAA Tournament since 2016. Freshman Joe Wieskamp said getting back to form was all about confidence.
“We put in so much work in our craft and worked so hard for this moment,” Wieskamp said. “And we just kept looking back on all the work that we put in and just realized that (you) hit so many shots in your life that just go out there and shoot it.”
With less than two minutes to play, Wieskamp caught a swing pass from Nicholas Baer and made a three-pointer to give Iowa its largest lead to that point, 70-64. Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin called timeout and guard Cane Broome looked up at the scoreboard as if wondering how the Bearcats let the game slip away.
Thirty seconds later, after Cincinnati’s Justin Jenifer missed an open threepoint attempt, Bohannon drove the lane and made a tough layup with contact, eventually completing a three-point play that generated the largest cheer of the afternoon from the Iowa crowd.
Luka Garza and Wieskamp led the Hawkeyes with 20 and 19 points. Wieskamp had made 5 of his last 18 attempts from beyond the arc before Friday’s game. In his first NCAA Tournament game, he converted 4 of 6.
“The fact that he’s able to kind of separate the emotions of the game from what actually happens on the floor is special,” Iowa forward Tyler Cook said. “Not a lot of people have that ability to do that, especially at his age. He’s going to be special.”
American Athletic Conference player of the year Jarron Cumberland led Cincinnati with 17, but was 7 of 17 from the field.
When Iowa switched to a zone after Cincinnati took an 18-5 lead, the Bearcats started taking ill-advised shots. Iowa’s offense was just too strong, scoring the second-highest points total Cincinnati allowed all season.
Cincinnati entered the game as the fourth-best team in offensive rebounding efficiency. After the Bearcats got nine offensive rebounds in the first half, the Hawkeyes limited them to just three — and only two second-chance points.
Iowa made adjustments and Cincinnati didn’t make enough plays. Now the Hawkeyes move on to face Tennessee on Sunday.
“We just sort of settled down,” Iowa coach Fran Mccaffery said. “Then you felt like, OK, we can attack this thing successfully.”