The Iowa Hawkeyes beat the Louisville Cardinals 70-69 in overtime today. My goodness what an exciting game! Louisville tried to keep the game up tempo and Iowa tried to keep the game at a slower pace. Depending upon which part of the game you were watching determined which of the two tempos you watched. In the end a slower, get-it-in-the-middle, let-your-big-man-touch-the-ball game won. I kind of liked that. Yeah, there were some threes shot, but what allowed the Hawks to win was superb interior passing and pounding the ball inside.
Greg Brunner was the hero of the day; he had 26 points, most of them inside just punishing the Cardinal defenders. He also had a key block near the end of the overtime that stopped Louisville from scoring. Brody Boyd came through with some nice outside shooting to score 22. Pierre Pierce and Jeff Horner struggled through poor shooting (they were a combined 4-19) but played pretty good floor games. Jared Reiner, while he didn’t score much with only 9 points, did manage to force both of Louisville’s centers into foul trouble and eventually both of them fouled out. While that doesn’t seem like much, it does open the middle when Iowa tried to attack the basket with its guards.
Francisco Garcia got a lot of pre-game press, but was only 4-10 from the field - not so good for a “sharpshooter” from outside. In fact, he only had one field goal at half time. He ended up with 17. Luke Whitehead finished with 18 to lead Louisville.
While Louisville was much more athletic they were NOT better basketball players. Many times they seemed to come down and simply rely on their athleticism instead of playing basketball. I personally like that because too much of the game today is decided by which team has better athletes and not who plays better basketball. Today the better athletes lost. I’m definitely liking the way the Hawks played defense as well. Louisville is known for its ability to shoot threes and shot just 41% from the field (to the Hawks’ 45%). Iowa will definitely need to improve its free throw shooting, or should I call it foul shot shooting? At 13-24 it is definitely foul shots they are shooting and not free throws. (Anyone that knows me knows that I believe there is a difference between a free throw and a foul shot. When Larry Bird shot it was a free throw; when Shaq shoots it is a foul shot.)
Good win, though, Hawks.
