In the midst of a three-game losing streak, No. 23 Iowa basketball (13-5, 3-4 Big Ten) was in dire need of a response.
The Hawkeyes got that in emphatic fashion, rolling past Indiana (12-6, 3-4 Big Ten), 74-57, in a game that Iowa never trailed in. In the process, Iowa won its sixth game over the Hoosiers in the two teams’ past seven meetings.
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As the Hawkeyes grab win No. 13 and snap their three-game skid, let’s dive into postgame takeaways from the big win:
Iowa basketball led wire-to-wire, had the game’s pivotal run
Iowa basketball set the tone, jumping out to a 10-2 lead in the game’s first seven minutes. The Hawkeyes would widen their first-half margin to as many as 11 points on a pair of occasions and carried a 10-point lead into halftime.
Then, when Indiana trimmed its deficit to just four points as the game approached the halfway point of the second half, Iowa authored a 17-3 scoring spurt to morph that four-point lead into an 18-point lead with just 5:39 to play.
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The Hawkeyes would go on to lead by as many as 22 in the game’s final two minutes.
Bennett Stirtz was instrumental in Iowa’s quick start
Iowa senior guard Bennett Stirtz was fantastic on Saturday. Stirtz dropped a game-high 27 points and had some big buckets in the second half to recreate separation when the Hoosiers had drawn close.
But, with Iowa entering on a losing streak, it needed its biggest star to deliver and make an early impression on how Saturday would unfold. Stirtz did just that.
The 6-foot-4 guard scored 14 first-half points and also assisted four times to help Iowa build its double-digit halftime lead.
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Tavion Banks’ emergence continues
Tavion Banks’ terrific play continued in Assembly Hall. After scoring a game-high 16 points against Illinois last week while dealing with a sickness, Banks was awesome again on Saturday.
Banks scored 26 points on 8-of-12 shooting with eight boards and a pair of assists. It was a Division I career-high for Banks. Banks and Stirtz’s 53 combined points marked the first time since Feb. 10, 2022, that a pair of Hawkeyes each scored 25-plus points on the road in a game.
Iowa won how it wants to moving forward
The Hawkeyes valued the basketball, turning it over just eight times in one of the Big Ten and country’s most hostile environments. Iowa was efficient in its offensive sets, routinely running the shot clock down and then finding and executing an action it liked.
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Defensively, there were stretches where the Hawkeyes had Indiana flat-out flummoxed. Iowa held Indiana to just 57 points, which was 26 points below its season average. The Hoosiers also entered averaging 10.5 3-point field goals made per game, and Indiana finished just 6-of-24 from beyond the arc.
That’s the Ben McCollum blue print and it was great to see it deliver the first true road win under McCollum.
Iowa picked up its first Quad 1 win
With the win, the Hawkeyes secured their first Quad 1 win of the season in five tries. In the immediate, it was obviously huge to get Iowa back on track and back in the win column.
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But, big picture, these are the types of wins that will allow Iowa to climb NCAA Tournament bracketology seed lines and best position the Hawkeyes for an extended March Madness run.
Great win for Iowa to build on.
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This article originally appeared on Hawkeyes Wire: Takeaways as Iowa basketball roars past Indiana
