BIRMINGHAM — Another Iowa trip to the tournament, and unfortunately for the Hawkeyes, another quick trip home—this time after a de facto road game in the heart of Alabama against 9-seed Auburn.
Iowa couldn’t overcome a cold first half or a 13-2 Auburn run early in the second half, and the 8-seeded Hawkeyes were eliminated from the tourney, 83-75. The loss ends Iowa’s season at 19-14.
Payton Sandfort led the Hawkeyes with 21 points in the loss, including 17 after halftime. Kris Murray contributed 15 of his own, with 14 for Filip Rebraca in his swan song in black and gold.
Auburn was led by big man Johni Broome, who recorded 19 points, 12 rebounds, and 5 blocks — and more shots altered or even prevented with his presence, as the Hawkeyes’ inside scoring evaporated after halftime.
Iowa’s frigid shooting proved its undoing one last time this season — with a 7-for-27 performance from deep, the Hawkeyes fell to 1-12 on the year when shooting less than 30% from behind the arc.
It could have been worse, too; Iowa missed all nine of its first-half three-point attempts, and finished the game missing seven of its last eight perimeter shots when the game looked back within reach.
Worse, the script was uncomfortably familiar; Iowa also dropped last year’s first-round tournament game to Richmond by starting 1-13 from long range, and finishing a still-dire 6-for-29. For a team that depends so heavily on its jump shooting to control the pace and flow of its games, the frequent and ill-timed struggles look like a flaw that the program will need to seek solutions for during the offseason.
Iowa coach Fran McCaffery refused to countenance that notion, though; when asked if the three-game slide to end the season would affect his approach to the offseason, he replied simply, “No. Not at all.”
Iowa let the Tigers take control of the game early in the second half and push the lead as high as 17, pushing the Tiger-friendly Birmingham crowd to nuclear levels of raucousness.
“The hometown, they came in deep and heavy,” said Auburn guard Allen Flanigan. “They showed out, they was loud and rowdy all game. Felt like a home game for us.”
Iowa didn’t take the bait on the Legacy Arena crowd contributing to the loss.
“We want to be one of the teams that's 'in it,'” said McCaffery after the game. “And I think once that happens, you have to take the mindset of we'll play anybody, anytime, anywhere. And I think that has to be your mindset.”
Connor McCaffery agreed.
“Playing in the Big Ten, we're used to playing on the road, playing in hostile environments," McCaffery said. "We won at Rutgers. We won at IU. And those places are 100 times louder than it was in here today. So I think it's just part of the game."
"Unfortunately we didn't play up to our capabilities," said Sandfort. "That's what happened."
The 13-2 run that pushed Iowa’s deficit into something insurmountable was keyed by Auburn guards Tre Donaldson and KD Johnson, who made all five of their three-point attempts in the second half. Donaldson and Johnson haven't been particularly noteworthy weapons over the course of the season for Auburn, but their success wasn't much of a surprise to Iowa.
"I was impressed with Donaldson [while scouting]," said Fran McCaffery. "I think that kid's a good player. Johnson, he's had games where he's gone off. He's just taken over at the end."
Yet it looked for a while that Iowa could pull one last second-half miracle out of its bag, as the Hawkeyes closed the game to as close as four points with 4:10 left — a virtual eternity in the NCAA tournament.
Key to the Hawkeyes’ resurgence was the duo of Murray and Sandfort, who erupted for a combined 28 points in the second half, including six of Iowa’s seven three-pointers. Alas, the pair couldn’t convert on opportunities to cut Auburn’s lead to fewer than four points, and the Tigers had more in their collective tank down the stretch.
“Once they cut it to four we just held up and said we've got to get stops and win this game,” said Broome. “We relied on each other -- box outs, rebounds, contested shots. That's what we did to finish the game off.”
Iowa has a pivotal offseason in front of it. The team was relatively short-handed this season, with 11 scholarship players and a rotation that rarely topped nine players (and, as the season wore on, stayed closer to seven or eight). Two seniors leave, and Kris Murray is likely to follow as a potential NBA Draft pick like twin brother Keegan Murray.
As it stands, Iowa's incoming 2023 recruiting class has four signees, headlined by four-star forwards Pryce Sandfort and Ladji Dembele. If the rest of the roster comes back for 2023-24, that leaves one free scholarship for a transfer, which the Hawkeyes are already actively pursuing.
And yet, with an upcoming roster where the leading returning scorer is the ultra-talented but mercurial Tony Perkins, Iowa looks in need of the type of help that few true freshmen can provide.
Auburn's athleticism and physicality caused a lot of problems for a lot of teams this season; Iowa's not unique in that regard.
If the offseason's roster moves get Iowa closer to handling that high-level, tournament-quality athleticism and push the Hawkeyes' defensive efficiency nearer to the early years of the McCaffery Era at Iowa, this may be one of the last times the Hawkeyes find themselves extending the Sweet 16 drought that has hounded the program since 1999.
Otherwise, it'll be another year of hoping the fickle fates of March Madness push that albatross away on its own.
