Iowa 68, Minnesota 56

In a game that will mercifully be nobody's lead story of the day, Iowa fought off a pesky Minnesota team, 68-56.

Kris Murray led all scorers with 28 points and chipped in 14 rebounds in the victory, while Filip Rebraca added 16 points and eight rebounds against the depleted Gopher front line, which was missing chief contributor Dawson Garcia to a lingering ankle injury.

Iowa improved to 16-9 (8-6 Big Ten) with the victory, while the Gophers are now 7-16 (1-12 Big Ten) and on an eight-game losing streak.

Sunday's game won't win any awards for aesthetic brilliance, as the Hawkeyes spent most of the game looking like a team with a nasty habit of playing down to its competition. Most of the game, but not all: the first half looked like a Hawkeye romp in the early minutes, with Iowa racing to an 18-6 lead and forcing all sorts of havoc in the Gopher offense.

Unfortunately, Minnesota started to see its shots fall at this point, while an invisible force field formed over Iowa's hoop. Iowa went on an 1-for-11 cold snap and finished the first half just 10-for-24 on layups, keeping the Gophers competitive in a game they had no business being in. All told, Iowa forced 10 turnovers and gathered nine offensive rebounds in the first half, but managed only nine and six points off those two factors, respectively.

But as Fran McCaffery said during the Big Ten Network post-game interview, "it's not the plays, it's the players," and down the stretch it was obvious that Iowa had the players. Murray took control in the second half, scoring 18 points after the break and hitting seven of his last 10 shots from the field — a welcome development after a 5-for-17 start with numerous misses near the rim.

Credit also belongs to Connor McCaffery, whose box score was typically atypical: 3 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals with just one turnover. McCaffery's quick hands on defense stymied the Gopher attack on numerous occasions when Minnesota was still within striking distance, and his three-pointer with 5:21 left (after three straight Iowa offensive rebounds) pushed the Hawkeye lead back to double digits; the Gophers would not bring the game closer than nine points the rest of the way.

Tony Perkins was as victimized by the unkind rims as much as anyone, finishing just 3-for-12 from the field, but he added seven rebounds, six assists and three steals with the type of energy that reinforced the value he adds to the team. Asking for performances like his 32-point game against Illinois is about as realistic as building an entire airplane out of the black box; what Perkins can do every time out is fill the stat sheet up in those diverse ways and force Iowa's opponents out of their comfort zone and into a sense of urgency that causes mistakes.

Box score is here.

Despite the Gophers' persistence on the scoreboard, the Hawkeyes did plenty of things right, especially on defense. Minnesota converted on several difficult, "low-percentage" jumpers while trying to erase Iowa's lead, and once those shots stopped falling there was no Plan B. The Gophers made just one field goal in the last 10 minutes of the game, allowing Murray and company to widen the lead and ultimately put the game away in crunch time.

And while Iowa struggled on converting close to the rim (17-for-39 on layups for the day), it wasn't for lack of effort; Iowa also got a season-high 17 offensive rebounds, including seven from Murray and four more from Rebraca. Iowa converted those 17 o-boards into just 15 points for the game, but on a day where shots aren't falling with any consistency, the best course of action is sometimes to just find ways to put a lot more of those shots up than your opponent.

To that end, thanks to the offensive rebounding and a 14-5 advantage in turnovers forced, Iowa finished with twenty-six more attempts on the day; Iowa's 27-72 shooting was not great efficiency-wise, but ultimately it's a better path to victory than Minnesota going 23-for-46 with the same amount of free throw attempts — 15. There's a lot of ways to outscore the other team, and that's absolutely one of them.

Iowa's next game is Thursday, February 16, against the visiting Ohio State Buckeyes. The game tips off at 8:00 PM CT, and will be televised on ESPN2.

Ohio State defeated Iowa, 93-77, in their previous meeting this season. The Buckeyes are 11-14 overall this season, 3-11 in the Big Ten, and losers of 11 of their last 12 games.