IOWA CITY -- Iowa (15-12, 6-10 Big Ten) held on for a 85-79 win in its first Big Ten matchup with Washington (13-14, 4-12 Big Ten) in Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Saturday.
Despite the weirdness of a game that included, but was not limited to, DJ Davis hitting Washington's final four shots from the field to keep the Huskies within arm's reach over the final two minutes, an Iowa reserve playing nearly 30 minutes, a horribly slow start, a shot-clock beating, banked-in three-pointer by Payton Sandfort, along with Iowa' leading scorer shooting 39% from the field, the Hawkeyes pulled off their first home win in nearly a month.
Here are three takeaways from the victory.
Carter Kingsbury
Though he's played more minutes this season than any year prior, Carter Kingsbury is an end-of-the-bench rotation piece and former walk-on. On Saturday, he was the first Hawkeye off the bench and played a career-high 29 minutes.
Kingsbury, though he had a rough idea he'd be relied on to guard Great Osobor, Washington's leading scorer, 6'8", 265-pound forward, didn't know he'd be playing nearly three-fourths of the game.
"[The staff] always tells me to stay ready at all times," Kingsbury said after thegame. "So it's kind of every game, you're just kind of waiting to see what moment and how big of a role I'll play. But, you know, Tristan Spurlock always tells me to stay ready. So it happened to be a lot more minutes tonight."
Osobor, who averages 15 points and 8.7 rebounds per contest, finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds before fouling out.
"They talked to me about guarding Osobor," Kingsbury added. "He's a tough guard, obviously, and he had a good night tonight. But, yeah, we needed multiple guys to be able to guard him tonight, and we knew that. So it was kind of a team effort containing him, I guess. We didn't stop him every single time, but he's a really good player."
In addition to defending Osobor, Kingsbury added a three-pointer and two assists. His teammates where thrilled with the fourth-year guard's performance
"[Carter] was great," Sandfort said. "He's the strongest guy we've got on the team. I've been roommates with Carter for the last four years, and I've just seen the way that he works and the way that he wants this and he loves this team. He's one of the best teammates I've ever had. The way that he just keeps energy and, you know, just doesn't matter what he's doing. He's he's trying to find a way to help the team win."
Kingsbury has continually helped the team's effort from behind the scenes, and finally got to shine a bit at home.
"In practice, he kills us all the time, just playing as [the other team's] best player," Sandfort said with a smile. "He made big plays the whole night though. He was rebounding, he was passing the ball, he was guarding, he hit a big shot. I'm just so proud of him."
Fran McCaffery, who put Kingsbury on scholarship prior to the start of the season, was beaming with pride.
"He'd been practicing really well," McCaffy said of Kingsbury. "I think he's a good fit for Osobor. Osobor's a handful. He's about 265, he's really strong, he's going to go back down game. I just thought Carter's strength and physicality would be affective, and it was."
36 Bench Points
Kingsbury wasn't the only Hawkeye that saw extensive minutes and made critical plays for the Hawkeyes off the bench, as reserves contributed 36 of Iowa's 85 total points.
"They've been in and out of lineups. Carter and Riley (Mulvey) and Even (Brauns) -- they've been on scout team for most of the year," Sandfort said. "But they're great teammates. They get us better. They're great players. We could see this coming. They were ready for their opportunity. They wanted this. They've been waiting for this. They've been working for this. And I'm proud of all of them."
Mulvey may have made the play of the day, taking a charge on what would've been a thunderous dunk by Washington's 6'11 center, Franck Kepnang.
"All I saw was somebody who was not going to do anything besides go to the basket and try to dunk it," Mulvey laughed. "So I just stood right in the way and took a charge."
Mulvey, who took a knee right to the chest on the play in question, earned the praise of his teammates for the play that added to the second-half shift in momentum that favored the Hawkeyes.
"That was impressive. That guy was pretty crazy athletically, but Riley stood in there and took it and never wavered," Sandfort smiled. "That's who he is. He's got a shirt that he wears that says 'It's just Riley doing Riley things.' I think that's what that was. But, you know, he was great. He made play after play."
In addition to the charge, Mulvey added nine points and a steal.
Brock Harding led the bench effort with 11 points, five assists and four rebounds.
"Brock Harding was tremendous," McCaffery said of his backup point guard. "Three threes, and he ran the show."
One of this three triples came in the midst of a possession that was nearly rebounded by Washington and nearly turned over by the Hawkeyes. With the shot-clock winding down to three and Sandfort in possession of the ball on the block, Harding sprinted to the corner, caught the ball and fired off the off-baalnce three-pointer.
He buried it:
In addition to Harding, the McCaffery went down the list to point to each individual that contributed to the Iowa win.
"Pryce [Sandfort] hits two big threes early when we were really struggling, and two free throws late," he noted. "Even [Brauns] gets a bucket, then he gets a dunk and-one. Riley was spectacular -- not only in terms of scoring the ball, but he moves it, he screens. Ladji [Dembele] goes seven [points] and eight [rebounds] and he's also on Osobor part of the time. ... That's the kind of team we have. We've got to really compete and stay together and just keep grinding. Because it didn't look good at the start of the game, it didn't look good at the start of the second half. But we hung in there."
The Game That Had Everything
Though the bench was sensational in the much-needed victory for the Hawkeyes, everything starts and ends with Sandfort. Not coincidentally, that trend continued into the second half against the Huskies.
Iowa hadn't led in he gameprior to the 8:51 mark in the second half, when Sandfort nailed three free throws to give Iowa a 59-56 lead, part of a wild run in which he scored six points over 24 seconds of game play. Just before that, he caught a wild pass from Kingsbury at the right wing and banked in a three-pointer. The ever-confident product of Waukee apparently called it, too.
"Payton, he can get on fire, So I just tried to get the ball in his hands," Kingsbury said after taking an inbound pass with less than four seconds on the shot-clock. "That was a tough shot. He called bank, too. He wanted me to let you guys know. Before it went in, he called bank."
Sandfort doubled down on his claim, though Kingsbury already shared the news.
"I screamed out bank and I think everybody heard me," Sandfort laughed. "Then I was telling everybody that I screamed out bank. We kind of just loosened up [after that] and everyone started making plays again."
Sandfort made plays in particular, leading the Hawkeyes in scoring with 27 points, including 20 in the second half. Josh Dix finished second in scoring with 15.
The team as a whole made plays, too.
In addition to the weirdness of a banked-in three, the wild poster dunk that wasn't, Harding's fade-away triple and Kingsbury's heavy minutes, 7-foot Mulvey made a reverse layup. Every person in Carver-Hawkeye Arena appeared to be in a state of shock after seeing Mulvey score that bucket.
"Well, in practice, I have [made one]," Mulvey said when asked when he had last made a reverse layup. "I don't know if I've really ever hit one in-game since I've been here, but I've done it in practice a couple times."
In a back-and-forth contest that resulted in an Iowa victory, Mulvey's score to put Iowa up 68-66 with 5:19 left was ultimately a good omen for what was a must-win victory for the Hawkeyes to stay in the hunt for a spot in the Big Ten Tournament.
"This was a very much-needed win for us," Mulvey said. "It's just huge that we got it."
NEXT: Iowa will travel to Champaign to take on Illinois (17-10, 9-8) on Tuesday, February 25. The game will tip off at 8 pm CT and will be broadcast on FS1.
